Celebrated artists, politicians, performers, community workers and LGBT activists will offer insights into contemporary gender issues in this unique symposium hosted by London's October Gallery Education on 24th March.

Taking Palestinian artist Laila Shawa’s Disposable Bodies No.3 as a trigger, the symposium offers a layering of narratives to create a collective portrait of women today. How conflicted will these multiple perspectives be? Do we really need a Women’s History Month anyway?

The Next Women is organizing it's next Pitch Event on February 24, 2012 in Amsterdam in the beautiful Elicium (photo).The pitch events are designed to improve access to financial and professional networks for women entrepreneurs and to enhance and accelerate a faster growth of their business.Therefore, The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation supports this upcoming pitch event, because female entrepreneurs are a potential for growth.

Following a year in which “people power” was the rallying cry from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street, the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting 2012 in Davos, which ended last Sunday, might seem like an elitist anachronism, but it is worth noting how the WEF over the past few years has tried in earnest to include voices from civil society as well as younger generations – from new, very active communities within the WEF such as the Young Global Leaders and the Global Shapers to – this year – even Occupy Davos.

The result: As a “platform for multi-stakeholder dialogue between business, society, and politics” (in the words of WEF founder and executive chairman Professor Klaus Schwab), the WEF is more relevant than ever (full disclosure: I am a member of the WEF Global Agenda Council on Values in Decision-Making).

That said, the Annual Meeting in the luxurious Swiss ski resort remains the “the world’s most exclusive gathering,” and it is hard not to be star-struck by a cast that this year included the likes of Bill Gates, Timothy Geithner, Christine Lagarde, David Cameron, Angela Merkel, the CEOs of most Fortune 500 companies, our very own Doreen Lorenzo, the president of frog, and – yes – Mick Jagger.

The February 2012 edition of Forbes Africa contains their list of Top 20 Start-ups in Africa. Check out the list below; do you agree with the listed companies; do you think some were missed out? Let us know in the Comments!

1. MXit.