The TEDWomen Conference on women’s leadership is underway for two days in Washington, D.C.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a surprise appearance to talk about women’s rights and humanity’s issues.

Over the past several years, a flood of fascinating data from the worlds of education, microfinance and more has shown an essential link between investing in women and girls and economic growth, public health, political stability. A new lens reveals women as powerful change agents in developing nations; meanwhile, in the West, generations of educated women are forging new directions in the sciences, arts, business and beyond.

To track this emerging story, the first-ever TEDWomen will invite both women and men to explore in depth: Who are the women leading change? What ideas are they championing? How are women reshaping the future?

The cross-disciplinary, cross-generational program will focus on how women think and work, communicate and collaborate, learn and lead — what this means and why it matters to all of us. Speakers from around the globe — both men and women, from anthropologists to artists, scientists to soldiers, farmers to futurists — will share their ideas in the classic TED format, creating a program that surprises and inspires.

Some of the speakers you’ll hear from will include:

• The physician who has discovered an important new health screening
• The woman who helped redesign her country’s financial system in the wake of near-catastrophe
• The husband-wife team whose collaborative style has sustained an innovative business model
• The tech pioneer whose human-centered approach is redefining how we interact with computers
• The rural woman whose invention brings a new, reliable food source to her community
• A world leader bringing peace to her conflict-ridden nation
• The teen-age social entrepreneur who’s changing communities around the world
• The global health expert whose grandmother taught him how inventions transform lives
• The explorer collecting stories and preserving languages of endangered cultures

As always with TED, the event will bring together an audience of men and women as fascinating and accomplished as the speakers themselves. TEDWomen will be co-hosted by the president and CEO of The Paley Center for Media, Pat Mitchell—a lifelong journalist and pioneering producer (she was previously the first female president of PBS). Read the Huffington Post’s Q&A with Pat Mitchell >>

A truly global event, TEDWomen will center in Washington, D.C., and connect live to self-organized events across the globe as part of the TEDx program. These gatherings will connect thousands of people from every continent, creating a global dialogue over the course of the two-day event, which will continue online as the talks get released to the world.

Groups or individuals around the world are encouraged to hold their own independently organized TEDx for TEDWomen events. Guidelines are available on the TEDx website.

TEDWomen will be held at the International Trade Center, located on historic Pennsylvania Avenue, and will close with a celebratory evening program at the newly built United States Institute of Peace. It will be the first event held in this architecturally stunning building designed by TED speaker Moshe Safdie.