Not knowing enough about your mental body and sexual
well-being, it means it affects relationships, your love
relationships, your family relationships, your friendly
relationships. Like it really extremely affects
yourself worth and how also we experience our pleasure as a
woman and this disconnection. It's stills energy, creativity,
confidence, ultimately what we don't talk about enough.
It costs society more than we realize.
Welcome to Women Disrupting Tech.
My name is dear Keanukas, and on this podcast I give the women
who work in tech the platform they need to inspire and empower
each other. Join me on a journey into the
world of entrepreneurship, funding biases, and role models
to discover the strategies for success in the tech industry.
In other words, how women can disrupt tech.
Are you ready to listen? Hey, welcome back to Women
Disrupting Tech and thank you for tuning in to episode 108.
Before we start, a quick heads up.
This episode contains explicit language and conversations
around topics that you may find sensitive, including sexual
trauma, shame, and systems of oppression.
That said, I encourage you to stay with us because what you'll
hear in this episode is important, human, and above all,
deeply healing. With that, let me tell you what
happened when I sat down with Joe Sera, the founder and CEO of
Humaversity. Joe Sera is a woman on a mission
to help others reclaim their health, pleasure, and
well-being. I could tell you that this was a
beautiful conversation, and it was.
But at the start it made me uncomfortable because when Joe
Serra explained that the silence around Women's Health is
strategic and that patriarchal, colonial and capitalist systems
benefit when women are disconnected from their bodies,
I felt the sting. It felt like I was being
implicated in something that I didn't want to be part of, and
frankly, I didn't think I had any influence over.
But here's the thing. Discomfort is also part of
growth. And Joe Sarah wasn't blaming me
or wasn't blaming at all. She was inviting me to listen.
To listen differently, to show up differently, and to lead
differently. In this episode of Women
Disrupting Tech, we talk about why the female anatomy is still
missing from many biology books, how shame and lack of knowledge
about the female anatomy fuel burnout and trauma, and why
university educates women about their health and sexual
well-being with a blend of science and global ancestral
wisdom. This episode told me something
simple but radical. We don't teach women how their
bodies work, and this comes with huge consequences that affect us
all. In that sense, the system is
broken. But since systems are built by
people, those same people like you and me can change them for
the better. So when you're ready to listen
and learn how humor versity helps women reclaim their health
and sexual well-being, please. Welcome to women disrupting Tech
Joe Sera. Hey Joe Sera, good morning.
Welcome to women disrupting tech.
Good to have you. Can you tell us briefly a bit
about yourself and what got you started on this journey?
Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm super excited to do this
episode with you. So I am Joe Serra, I'm founder
and CEO of UMA Varsity and also keynote speaker and unapologetic
advocate for Women's Health, mental body and sexual
well-being. I grew up between cultures,
Vietnamese, Dutch, Indian and also in different countries of
Asia and I witnessed how shame, silence and system systems
really stripped women of their power.
And what drives me today is simple but so important is to
give women the knowledge, the tools and the support they need
to take ownership of their health, their pleasure and
power. And besides this, I'm also
advocating for diversity, inclusivity, equity and
belonging in workplaces and encouraging women to take also
ownership of their their businesses, their empowerment
and their desires. But mainly it all starts with
the foundational piece and that is your well-being.
And that's why I founded university.
OK, so when we spoke before, you told me that sort of everyone
knows the anatomy of a man and for women this is very
different. What do you think causes this?
Is that also the shame part? Well, I think first of all, not
only women don't know their anatomy, but we all don't know
the female anatomy that much because the female anatomy has
not been excessively explained, just like the male anatomy
explained in the in the biology books only.
For example, only three years ago did the clitoris, the full
clitoris complex actually, was it actually displayed in one
high school biology book in the Netherlands, let's say.
So that's only three years ago. And so there we have so much to
learn and it all starts with education.
And I think why women grew up knowing so little about their
bodies was because silence is strategic.
Patriarchal, colonial and capital systems benefit when
women are disconnected from their bodies, unfortunately, and
we're taught to feel ashamed, like you said, and also fear our
periods, ignore our pleasure, and doubt our intuition.
And education systems, as I said before, rarely name the
clitoris, which is the number one pleasure organ for women,
let alone teach us about how our hormones affect performance, our
our performance or our sexuality.
And I, I really believe that that ignorance isn't accidental.
It keeps power and overall well-being out of our hands.
And it's not, I don't think it's per SE one person's fault, but
it's what there are. Yeah.
Our systems and society have been been placing because of
patriarchy and colonialism and capitalism.
And. Yeah.
And it, it the the effects of not knowing enough about your
body is catastrophic. It's really big because it it
doesn't only affect women in their personal lives, but an
area, every area of their life. OK.
Can you elaborate a bit on that because it's the the personal
lives if you are on your period then generally from what I hear,
I am not a woman so I don't know.
But from what I hear, you don't feel that well.
But how does that impact your life, both personally and
professionally? Yeah, so when women don't know
enough about their bodies and what's happening in their bodies
and the effect it has on their mental health and their sexual
health, then often when you don't know something, you
actually think it's you, you become ashamed.
You just we're, we're so told to push through the pain and when
women don't understand their well-being, their cycles,
hormones, sexuality, right? We're also more prone to being
misdiagnosed, which happens all the time.
Or we're prone to being shamed, feeling shame, but also told to
push through the pain, which happens so much and
professionally that that means burnout, underperformance, also
being seen as emotion, too emotional, which happens a lot,
a lot of gaslighting on the work floor, but also happens that you
have higher stress levels because you're pushing through
the pain, which would be maybe addressed if you got diagnosed
right. Or if you could actually plan
your work around your cycle and according to your cycle to
empower yourself if you can actually, if you know how to
friends is when you become a new mom, how to go into the
postpartum period with your the education and tools instead of
just pushing yourself in that period and having having no clue
and then not being able to recover fully.
So then getting back to work is is is hell is.
And that's what we hear a lot in our communities and women around
us. And personally, not knowing
enough about your mental body and sexual well-being.
It means it affects relationships, love
relationships, your family relationships, your friendly
relationships. It extremely affects yourself
worth and how also we experience our pleasure as a woman.
And this disconnection. It's ills, energy, creativity,
confidence. Ultimately, what we don't talk
about enough, it costs society more than we realize.
Can you double click on that? How much the the the is there?
What is the business case here? For instance, well, we all know
that women are the backbones of the family.
Women are the ones that give birth, take care of the children
a lot, but also we're the the caring ones in society.
But at the same time, we're expected to do that at the same
time when we receive a lack of care for us as women, we, we
translates to us pushing through, getting misdiagnosed.
And also it affects also how we can empower those around us.
It affects how people see us as women.
There's there's so many ways that a lack of well-being can
can affect our sons, our our fathers, our partners, our
colleagues at work because it's not per SE always their fault.
But if the women don't know, they suffer.
And this suffering just translates into every area of
society in every layer. So, so how can we change this?
I mean, there there's obviously the education part, which we'll
discuss quite in depth, I think, but there's also the, the
societal part that needs to change in terms of role models.
And it may be not per SE around at least what I'm hearing you
say about the, the, the care role, but also about how we look
at women, how we look at women's sexuality, about their desires.
Because I agree that it's, well, female health is underfunded.
That's a fact. I think 3% of all the the health
investments go to to female health.
It's under researched. That's also a fact.
I think we know less about menopause than we know about
most rare diseases in men. But how do we make that shift in
society to, let's say, facilitate that women can be
their full selves? Well, I, I think it does start
with education because it starts with awareness first.
And if you, if nobody, if you don't get educated, you cannot
become aware of what's missing or what is there that you should
address. So it does start with education,
but it also starts with creating safe spaces to talk about this
and to actually talk about this. And I am all about the taboo,
the breaking of taboos, the the dismantling of myths around
Women's Health because they are very hurtful and often based on
patriarchal and colonial beliefs and also capitalist beliefs and.
Can can you name a few few of those myths?
OK, let me think. There's so many.
Well, there's just one that comes to mind is that, for
instance, every woman is super emotional when, when it's the
time of the month, right? That that's a wrong thing.
Often that translates to PMS and because of PMS, but actually
this very, extremely emotional, how people perceive it is
actually a disbalance of hormones, especially in the
luteal phase, the phase before you enter the menstrual phase.
And so a lot of our experts, they, they, they, they teach on
this and it is actually solvable through many kinds of natural
ways, nutrition education. And, and another myth is that
every woman, for instance, can orgasm through vaginal
penetration. This is not true.
And what, and this myth is actually very hurtful because a
lot of the times because of this myth, men just penetrate first
thing and they forget about the pleasure of the woman.
And also because women believe this sometimes as well, they
also allow this. And then what it ends up
happening is that that there has been sex between a man and a
woman and a woman has not enjoyed it and the man has.
And this is so there's a there's a huge orgasm gap because of
this as well, especially in heterosexual relationships
because with with friends in between lesbians, there is no
orgasm gap. Because they know how to
stimulate each other. Exactly, and because they also
are aware of it. Why don't we teach this at
schools? Well, this is interesting.
Or at least the the the biology part of it.
Yeah, this is, it's interesting. I've been in education for over
15 years and what I've noticed is that, for instance, in the
Netherlands, we have a week of, of, of education around the
birds and the bees. It's called the.
And every year parents decide to, to keep their at home
because they don't want their kids to learn about the birds
and the bees. But in these, in these lessons,
it's really in why don't we teach about anatomy in schools?
I think it's because the adults are still very ashamed.
They're taught shame about sexuality and they're like, I
don't want my kid to learn about sex yet because sex is XYZ.
That's what it means to them. But they don't allow their their
own child to learn about it in the most neutral way and to
discover it themselves. Many studies have actually shown
is that when you only teach your kids when they're teenagers,
it's often too late because at that time they're more
rebellious. They don't want to talk.
It is from their parents. So it's important to teach your
kids. Well, I think it's important to
teach your kids first what, what boundaries are and consent in
which part of their bodies nobody is allowed to touch
without consent. I also think I, when I have a, a
child, I will teach my child the correct anatomical names for
their anatomy from the beginning and not some other words that
you know, are kind of more cute because I also want my child to
feel ownership of their anatomy. So I think that's very
important, learning the anatomy, the the anatomical names, but
also the boundary consent. And those two things are very
essential for young children to learn because this also can help
them give the the words and the signals when something is
crossing and someone is crossing their boundaries.
Because unfortunately, we just actually released an episode on
this university podcast about sexual trauma and it's insane.
I have yet to encounter a woman that has not experienced sexual
trauma in any any type of form. And this is and a a lot of the
sexual trauma actually happens when they're younger, when
they're children. So they enter adulthood damaged.
Yeah, there's a lot of damage that happens.
And also when sexual trauma occurs to you when you're a
child, your sexual journey or the, your sexual education gets
accelerated, gets distorted. And so the rest of your adult
life, you are affected by this. And if you don't have the right
education or experts to guide you into through healing, you're
damaged. And sex becomes either something
that you you seek for validation, what we've, this is
what we've expert just has told me as well.
And also what we've seen or sex becomes something that you
absolutely want nothing from, or you don't see sex as something
that can bring you pleasure. So there's, there's all kinds of
very heavy effects if we don't educate our children.
And I often get the question actually, why don't you start
with, you know, why why doesn't, why didn't you start with
university to educate children? And it is because I've seen that
if we every week in the Netherlands with the with the
birds and the bees week that the parents keep their children at
home and the parents complain at school and there's so much
resistance. And I just knew if in order for
us to create a better world for the generations to come, we have
to start with this generation that is deciding what sexuality
and well-being means for women in this world.
And that is the adults and that's why I decided we're
focusing solely on adults. So 18 plus and or 16 plus.
Sometimes we also, we also provide education in colleges
and stuff. But yeah, so this is actually
what I I really believe and I strongly believe in what I want
to make change for. And how does Uma Varsity play
into this? How is it addressing this these
gaps in knowledge and and access to to information?
Yeah. So OMA Versity is a learning and
a community platform where we empower women to take ownership
over their mental body and sexual well-being.
And we do this through education that is science based and
culturally rooted. So includes the different
medical modalities all over the world from different cultures.
We have expert guidance with experts from also all over the
world that have a lot of experience themselves, but also
a lot of experience with patients and clients.
And we do this through the support of a community where we
encourage women to discover how their body, mind and sexuality
really work and how to thrive. But we also encourage women to
share and connect multiculturally.
So between cultures, but also between generations because a 5
minute conversation can change your life.
And so we learn through different ways and we provide
knowledge exchange in different ways.
And we work with over 100 trusted international experts
right now provide taboo breaking education.
So we really provide the safe space to talk about everything
when it comes to Women's Health. There is no food in our
community, in our platform. OK, so how do you create that
safe space? Because I think that's one of
the very most important parts of of building a community.
Yes. So from the very beginning, I
knew that I'm just one woman, one person with one perspective.
So instantly I knew that I needed to find experts around
me, but also ambassadors, so women who are already in
advocating in their own way for Women's Health and together.
And I made sure that as much as I could.
That that these these experts and ambassadors were culturally
inclusive, gender inclusive, that they also had the the right
values that coincide with our values at university.
So the first thing of our biggest value is leading with
love. So at our events and our online
offline events, we always leave with love and we make sure that
everybody understands that everything you say needs to add
value. You're allowed to be here,
you're allowed to Share your story.
We will not judge. So it's really important to to
also communicate and make sure that there's a non judgmental
environment. There's an environment where you
don't just share, Share your story and that's A and and
that's it. No, we also have the experts and
education and the supporting and loving, loving community that
can help you go from having a problem to healing and then to
feeling empowered and to having to taking ownership over your
body. And so we're basically we're a
sexual hormonal well-being university that we all wish we
had but never existed that we feel safe at.
Because I'm also an advisor in diversity, inclusivity, equity
and belonging. I try to make sure that there's
a foundational, like a foundation of safety everywhere.
We go so that includes making and making sure that our experts
are from different cultures are from different generations are
from different genders that our education also includes.
For instance, we use the term women plus we're still trying to
create a more inclusive term. But with women plus we mean
everyone that identifies as woman or feminine and or has a
vulva. And it's also for instance non
binary people that have a vulva but don't see them as a woman,
but they also deserve to learn about their vulva for instance.
Even if they don't, I. Identify as women.
Yeah, Yeah. OK.
But we try to include this as well in our education as well as
we've had also panel talks like Beyoncé's womanhood where we had
a person that has an intersex experience.
We had a trans woman who decided to not transition with hormones,
a trans woman who who did decide to transition with hormones and
they're like, there's. It was such an interesting panel
because a lot of people in the audience had no idea what
actually really plays in their lives when you are not just a
woman, you know, you have. There's so many different very
especially people with intersex experience.
There are a lot of people with intersex experiences and that it
just doesn't get talked about enough.
It was also really hard to find a person that was willing to
speak about it. But I found I find it found it
so important that we had that voice on the stage because
that's this is how we learn as a society.
This is how we can support people that we meet every day
with intersex experiences that are transgender, that are non
binary, that are a woman, that that that is a woman who has
experienced sexual trauma, who doesn't know about her pleasure,
who has suffered postpartum trauma.
Let's let Yeah, this goes on. Is it?
Is it difficult, by the way, to find women to talk on panels who
want to or who feel comfortable talking about their sexual
trauma? Because I I can imagine that
also is part of the shame that rests on, on being assaulted for
a rape that you don't. There's a lot of women that
don't speak up about it. Well, I haven't had any
difficulty finding women or people speaking up about topics
that are very, I, that, that a lot of people feel shame about
or fear or, or there's a lot of taboo or stigma around.
I think it's because I really thought about, hey, if I was
asked to speak about this and this topic, how would I want to
be approached in, in the 1st place?
So the way we approach these people to speak about these
topics is first of all, in a very open and loving way, in a
way that we guarantee safety, that we communicate and inform
them on how we're going to guarantee the safety.
But I also think as the leader of home adversity, one of my
values is leading by example. That also means that if I ask
other people to be vulnerable, I need to be vulnerable myself.
And I've done that from the very beginning, being vulnerable
about my experiences, being open to talk about it.
That's how basically the months and years before home adversity,
it kind of started. I was very open and vulnerable
about my experiences and I saw how I just get, I got so many
women come back to me say, because you spoke up about your
experiences about your and you were vulnerable.
This is what I did to my life and this is how improved my life
and my awareness of my sexuality about my well-being.
And we also make the people, when we approach people to
speak, we also make them aware of that, that, that the impact
they can have. We've only gotten very good
feedback from the people that spoke with it.
We felt so safe to speak and we loved the questions from the
audience and we loved the, the impact.
And still to this day, even two years later, people from the
first event still get messages from people like, Oh, I love
when you say that, that that really affected my life.
So a lot of the times they become allies from for our
mission and they support what we're doing.
Yeah, yeah. And it's also then what I mean
you say is that it's also really important to create those role
models for women and to to your point, to be 1 yourself.
I take that very seriously. Yeah, with self compassion of
course, but. Yeah.
How do you balance that? Just taking it from my own
experience as a starting ally. You want to do everything
perfect but how do you balance that with self compassion?
Yeah, this is a very, I love this question.
This is something that I've been researching and experimenting
with a lot. First of all, for me, it starts
with I created a platform around well-being as a woman.
So in order to lead by example, to be the role model, I also
need to take care of my own well-being.
And I have a very rare health issue with my esophagus that
effects a lot of my life. I have trouble keeping food in
my body. I vomited out because my
esophagus doesn't work. And so there's also what it
means in this case for self compassion is sometimes
accepting that on a day that my health isn't the best, but then
also taking it more easy, finding a work, work life
balance, work work health balance, resting, setting my
boundaries for certain things, but at the same time also
finding acceptance. And when I have it, when I do
have a hard time with my health or with some other issue that I
am kind to myself, there's this voice that we all have.
It's the inner critic. And I've learned to not let it
be a perfectionist because The thing is, I can be a extreme
perfectionist. I'm very ambitious, very driven,
but I, I noticed that the way I spoke to myself and still speak
to myself sometimes, it's something that you're ever
learning. I feel it didn't add value to
what I was doing. It meant everything worse.
And so I started seeing like I, I reprogrammed my mind set and
reprogrammed this, this inner critic into being more a coach,
an editor than a, than an inner critic.
How do you do that? It starts first.
Well, it started with. Me.
It starts with awareness. Be aware.
Oh, my inner critic is now saying this.
Exactly. It started with, hey, what, what
I'm actually telling myself, this inner critic, this voice is
not helping in this situation is it's making me feel worse.
It's making me feel sad, angry, even though it's something maybe
out of my control or it's something that has happened.
And what it also did is that it, it fueled my fear of failure and
it fueled my insecurity and lowered myself worth.
But I realized that making mistakes is the way I learn, the
way we all learn and in order and also the way you grow.
And so for instance, I have a every year I have a word.
Last year it was self compassion and I focus on these words.
And this year my focus is experimentation.
But experimentation to do that successfully is only possible
when you have self compassion because you allow yourself to
make mistakes, mistakes with quotation marks so that you can
learn. But if you, if you can't do you
can't do it with self compassion, then what it does is
that you just punish yourself for making mistakes and you
become afraid to try new things. And I, in order for me to lead
university in the best way, and also in this untouched,
unexplored space of Women's Health, right?
Two years ago, there was barely anything about Women's Health.
Right now there's way more, thank God and thank the
universe. But we're still navigating in a
very new space that has, that hasn't been explored, but has
been so present in societies from the very beginning.
Women's Health has always been there, but we haven't educated
or found improvements or researched enough because you,
as you said, it's under research underfunded.
And so it does take as the the CEO of a university, it does
take a lot of pivoting. It does take a lot of research,
a lot of trying things out. How can we make women feel the
safest to learn, share and connect and grow and explore
their well-being? And how can we provide that in
the best way? And that takes for me self
compassion in order to be experimental.
Yeah, I think then a lot of founders need to have self
compassion because they need into your point.
Really the only way to learn is to make the mistakes, because
otherwise you don't find out what is wrong.
Exactly. I always like the the Edison
quote here that I found. I didn't feel I just found
10,000 ways that it doesn't work.
Exactly. And that is so that that that is
like such valuable knowledge, knowing what doesn't work, you
know. And so for me, it's, it's really
important to lead this way also because we have a lot of female
founders in our community that do see also, Hey, Joe, Sarah is
leading university this in this way.
And I also coach female founders a lot with business strategy and
with manifesting their desires. My book.
And I think it's just important that as a leader, you're
vulnerable, that you have self compassion, that you are also
not afraid to speak up about what you believe in and that
you, you, you add value to those around you, to yourself.
That those are things that I really try to do every every
day. I'm not perfect at all.
I feel successfully every day. And I say feel successfully
because I am a person that I look at, hey, what, what did go
wrong? And how can I, how can I be
better tomorrow? So that's.
Yeah, how, how do you learn? Because that's also something we
don't teach our girls to speak up.
How how do you do that? How do you learn?
Your teach yourself that. Yeah, that's a really good one.
I had to learn this myself because I was always a person
that knew. I still am a person that I know
what I as a young girl, I knew what I wanted, but as a girl,
you get often silenced. And also, hey, just don't say
this. You're not this is inappropriate
or you or especially by boys or men that are taught to be like,
oh, I'm dominant in the conversation and it's not their
fault. It's just what they're taught.
And so it started learning how to speak up is first actually
learning who am I? What am I here to say?
What am I here to do in this life?
And you don't have to have a perfect answer and this answer,
all these answers also change as you grow and as you become older
and as you experience more of life.
But knowing in the moment answer like who am I?
What are my values? What do I stand for?
What, what is my message really helps you to become clear on
what you have to say and starting in your your inner
circle, speaking up about what you want, what you don't want,
what you believe in, what you don't believe in, and then
expanding that to bigger circles.
That is, I think, the way to go, but it starts with with knowing
yourself first. Knowing yourself 1st and then
moving to telling other people in in in a small, let's say
trusted circle and then expanding gradually that circle
outside. Yeah, exactly.
OK, so I. Want to?
There's so many other tips I can give as well, but this is the
the first few steps and knowing that your voice is powerful and
it's a it's a tool to spread your message.
Yeah, and that you deserve to use that voice.
Exactly. Because that's why you have it.
In the 1st place, yeah. And everybody deserves to be
heard. Doesn't matter what you've done
or where you come from, everybody deserves to be heard.
That's also another thing when it comes to leadership, that's
really important for me is to stay curious, stay open and
curious. Also, all of these things that I
said before that I hold myself accountable to, that I feel
responsible for. It's also for me a way to keep
my ego in check because everybody has ego.
Everybody has. And I, I really don't want to
lead university with ego because it's such a safe space for many
women and it's such an important space and we have a huge
mission. And so keeping your ego in check
also starts with being open and curious and asking questions
instead of assuming. And this is a very human thing
to do, human assuming. It's also what your brain is
wired to do. But I am a very curious person,
so I do like to ask a lot of questions.
I remember as a girl, I already liked it so much that my parents
said, OK, stop with the questions.
I would always ask why? Why was my question always, why
is that? Why is this?
And but I it makes you see all the intricacies and the
beautiful colors and the nuances in life and in people when you
are curious. Yeah, I fully agree there.
So I want to talk a bit about go back a bit to university,
because when we spoke before, you explained that you use five
different ways of knowledge exchange.
Can you walk through what they are and give an example of each?
Yeah, sure. So first let me start with maybe
the knowing the meaning of Uma versity.
So Uma means woman in Surnamese and it also means the people,
the nation, the goddess and and the mother in different
languages. And versity refers to like a
university where you can grow and explore.
So we're basically a university on women's well-being.
And at a university you have different ways of learning.
But when I was creating Uma versity, I was thinking, OK,
there's this huge problem and lack of education and lack of
ownership over women for women on their their well-being.
How can I solve this in the best way?
That it's holistic, that it's all-encompassing.
So I really researched a lot and I found five ways of how we
learn best and how we can learn fully.
And everybody learns in a different way.
So the five ways are intellectual.
And that's how we provide the intellectual ways.
What we do through expert talks, where experts give master
classes. This is the classic thing that
you see at universities as well. Learn.
We have social knowledge exchange where we learn from
each other through conversations, panel talks.
And yeah, panel talks that are multicultural, multi general
gender, multi generational. And we also learn physically, so
mind body through workshops when you take the knowledge that
you've learned and actually practice it in your body, around
your body, with your body. And then we also have emotional
and spiritual, and this is often through art, music, poetry, and
through some other modalities as well, like for instance, human
design, astrology also. These are just some things, but
through art and music and poetry, sometimes something
about your well-being, your health can just hit a different
snare, like a different string because you hear it through
music or through poetry or art or you see it.
And that's why we also provide emotional, spiritual.
And then lastly, we provide a marketplace where female owned
businesses and foundations for women are there to seek help, to
give help and support and women can find the right products, the
right possibilities for them. So it's intellectual, social,
physical, emotional, spiritual in a marketplace.
So how do you find the right companies for the marketplace
And on the back of that, how do you find the right experts for
for the panel talks and for on the platform because you have
over 100 experts. I was just really curious how
you vetted those. Yeah, it's, it's been a very
beautiful journey. What would it starts with
knowing and and living and, and building a company that knows
its values and so on adversity. Our values are very clear how
first of all, we vet our experts and our partnerships, the
collaborations, the foundations and the companies that we work
with. We vet them based on, are they
in line with our values? Can we see that in their
actions, in their messages and how they provide their services
and their products? That's how because that's also
what we owe our women that are part of our platform that they
know, hey, I'm here, I'm safe, I can explore it and discover my
and heal my within my well-being.
So we have a whole onboarding process for our experts and that
also involves that we, that myself or on my team actually
experience friends as a session with this expert.
And in, in that we also have to be vulnerable.
We, we go into that session with this expert and we just, when I
do it, for instance, I'm very vulnerable.
I'm just another woman. I'm not the CEO of women
versity. No, I'm just another woman.
And I, I'm actually there to follow a session from this
expert. And then my intuition, my gut
feeling and also the onboarding criteria that we have kind of
then will lead into, hey, is this expert right for Umoversi
or not? Can this expert provide a safe
space? Can this expert actually, does
this actually have enough experience?
Can you sense that through a session?
Can you? And then we, and then only after
that we let the expert provide education, provide the expert
talks. We, we refer our women to the
experts, but I do. But why?
One thing I really want to say is I think.
What really differentiates university from a lot of other
Women's Health platforms and what I think it's really
important that we should do more in this world is not just have
experts or education based on science only, because science is
still very behind on Women's Health.
And if we only base all of our education and, and, and all of
our expertise on that, then we can wait for many years until
it's there because it's underfunded, under researched.
But at the same time, there is, there are so much knowledge
around the world that has has been around for thousands of
years. Look at traditional Chinese
medicine, Ayurvedic, Ayurvedicenna, I can just go on
the list goes on and on, right And these medical modalities,
these these, this expertise has been around for so long and has
helped so many women around the world.
And what we do at university is we we bring that all together in
one place because often women from those cultures stay within
the culture. But what if you can actually
learn from each other's cultures how Women's Health problems are
treated? So for instance, we had a panel
on my female body around the world and we had a panel of
members who were all non western.
And they, for instance, we, there was a question about how
do you deal, how, how in your culture do you deal with, with
menstrual pain? And there were four different
answers and four answers that we didn't see in the Western world.
So it was no, there was no paracetamol or painkillers.
There were teas, there were herbs, there were certain
massages, all kinds of tools that as a woman in the audience,
you can think, oh, wait, let me try this instead of pumping my
body full with pills or you know, and, and this is what
we're doing. We're connecting women through
connecting women to experts from around the world that have
knowledge that also experts that combine science and culturally
rooted expertise. A lot of our experts actually do
both science and the different and and non scientific medical
modalities. And this combination is very
beautiful and is is goals because it it does advance.
So just to give an example there there are women that have vulvar
pain, so pain in the vulva and a lot of and this is still an
under researched problem and this is when having.
Sex or even without sex? Even without sex is possible as
well. Both.
So one of them vulva pain types is vulvadenia and we have an
expert that combines science and Chinese medicine and she
actually has heal, helped women heal through acupuncture.
And then she doesn't put the needles in the vulva.
She puts in different areas of her body and at the same time,
doctors don't know and can't explain sometimes where it is.
So this combination of the two, to be honest, I don't want to
say the two because there's Western science and there's so
much. On the other hand, and another
reason why we're combining these two is because when you only
base your experts and your knowledge that you providing
your platform on science, you on western based science, you also
exclude a lot of cultures. And we want to include all the
colors as much as possible. So there's so much benefit to
this. And this is what we've been
doing from the start and it's been so enlightening and we've
given so many women extra tools because of this.
Yeah, yeah. I.
Think pulling knowledge, it's basically what you do is you use
worse knowledge from around the world that is not necessarily in
line with traditional western medicine.
Which to your point is really like OK just take a paracetamol
and make sure you stick it out until the pain subside.
By pulling knowledge you actually enable and help a lot
of people deal with their problems exactly.
I think for some. Rare.
Conditions also men would benefit from it.
There's a lot to let let's say the even in simple things like
or practically simple things like meditation, there's a lot
of good already. Exactly.
Yeah, yeah, I agree. And, and, you know, to be
honest, I wish what we're doing was there for every gender.
The only reason we're focusing on Women's Health is because
it's the most under. Yeah, it's the biggest problem.
Exactly. And we're we're like.
Half of the world. And also another thing, I am a
woman, so it doesn't feel OK for me to speak about a man's body.
But we do welcome everybody to join the conversation and to
learn together. So we do have a lot of men, a
lot of other genders that come to our events and that join
their partners, their sisters, their mothers in learning.
How important is that? It's extremely.
Important. Because.
You feel supported not only when you're at the event or learning
at a master class or in our online Women's Health on script
pedia called UMA Pedia, but you're also feeling supported in
your home, in your work, like we are also advocating and we are.
We're providing education in companies, on the work floor, at
universities, at colleges. We're providing our we're
putting our experts in providing education there.
And then you, you not only feel supported in work, but also in
your study, in your in your relationship.
It's so important. So we always include all genders
in awe all of our education as much as we can.
There are sometimes that we keep it women only when it friends is
about sexual trauma. Then it it's a bit more.
We want to create a safe space for women to be open about the
sexual trauma and sometimes having the gender that was the
perpetrator in the room can trigger a lot and also not make
them feel safe. That's the only time that we
have had women only events, but all of the other events are open
to everybody to learn. And this I'm not saying by the
way, is it by the way important to think for?
Men to understand what trauma does too.
Absolutely. It's so important.
And this is also why, for instance, we have our podcast,
we just did an episode on, on reclaiming cells of after
trauma. And our expert Lisa, she
explained so much about what actually what's the damage that
has happened. And we've had, for instance,
events where we had how to become sex positive after sexual
trauma. And that was an event that was
for all genders. And it was an event where you
could learn how to also heal together in a relationship or in
your family. So it's very important.
And we do create that space as well, OK, Because.
I was wondering what what men and allies can do to support
women on their journey to better, better health of
mentally and boldly and sexually.
Well, yeah, one thing you can do is.
Educate yourself as a as a, as a man to support, educate yourself
about women's well-being. Be curious, be understanding,
supportive, but also come to our events and bring the women that
you know to our events and to our community because we're here
for you and we love. And I love that the the.
Men in our community are, so they're vulnerable.
They're open to learn and they are also very accepted and
answered when they have. When they have questions,
they're answered with love. OK, so.
There's no, there's no shame in coming there for a man.
Absolutely not no. So I.
Want to wrap up with a? Question about the future of
humor first T because you have a big hairy audacious goal helping
one. Billion.
Women Plus reclaim their sexual and mental health.
Let's say in 10 years from now you've achieved that goal.
What's the next step after that? Wow, that's a beautiful question
and. So in 10 years, we want to
become the number one place where women, women and their
allies and their partners come to learn and share and connect
about their well-being. And after those 10 years, I
think at that time, I think we'll already have university
hubs in different areas of the world and we're just going to be
expanding. I would love to, to create
systems where where women's well-being is a standard and
have researched a lot of researchers ongoing to, to
improve Women's Health. But for now, the big hairy
audacious goal is to to empower 1 billion women to learn, share
and connect with their mental body, sexual well-being.
So we're and, and we're becoming the first place where women go
to for their well-being in our app, all in one app.
And we want to have the biggest online Women's Health
encyclopedia. We already have it now and it's
expanding every day. It's called Umapedia.
And there's so many research resources out on there and
everything is categorized. It's easy to look for things.
And we also want the biggest online expert center where you
can book a session with an expert that is trusted, that is
vetted, that we suggest and that we definitely recommend.
And I definitely would love to have a, a nonprofit at one point
foundation that does the research and that we can also
collaborate with other foundations.
I with the UN, with the World World Health Organization.
That's where I. Want to be at in the in the next
10 years? And The funny thing is where we
are right now, I thought we would be there in 5 to to seven
years, but we're already here after 2 1/2 years.
So it might be that we reach the goal sooner.
But The funny thing is 1 billion women is only 1/4 of the women
in the world. So, but I do believe if we, if
you start with a quarter, it's going to be like a ripple
effect, a ripple effect. Exactly so.
I guess then the the next goal would be 2 billion women and in
the end 4. Yeah, or half the.
Population that let me. Put it that way, yeah.
And we're we're trying to also include.
Tech in this in the solutions that we offer, so building AI
custom trajectories and making sure that women have the
personalized help that they need because we are moving as a
society to that. So they're already working on
this kind of a solution for women as well.
OK. Just a question about.
It how do you keep bias out of the AI?
Because AI is, well, people are biased.
There are certain people who built AI are biased by default.
And sort of you can't move around that.
So how do you make it as unbiased as possible?
Yeah. So this is I.
I think being completely unbiased is a very hard thing to
do in general, even like with even AI or not because we're
humans as you said. But but I think it's really
important to keep that feedback loop from the women receiving it
very unobstructed. So always asking the feedback
from the women, hey, how was this for you?
Or are you missing? And then working on that, being
open to improve and being open to see your bias.
And also when you're programming to make sure that you have
several checks within your organization, outside of your
organization, within the community to make sure that it's
unbiased as possible. So that's my answer.
OK, so my mission is to make. Inclusion in texture new normal
by the end of 2032. What would be your one thing
that you would suggest that I should do to get there for you
personally or? For your mission for me.
Personally, as part of the mission, I think to make it.
Even more inclusive, I would look at different culture like
cultural solutions that aren't happening right now different
because there there's so much stick happening in different
cultures that we are kind of not spotlighting, but I think make
it multicultural and multi generational inclusive.
I think that's very important. OK, I'll work on making.
It so multicultural and multi generationally inclusive as
well. That's amazing.
I love that. So, Joe Serra, thank you very
much. For this amazing conversation,
if people want to learn more about you and my first tea,
where would you like to send them?
Well, thank you for having me. First of all, I.
Really like this conversation. You can find us at
umavarsity.com. So UMA is UMA and varsity.com
and we're also on LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok
and all all the socials. And we also have UMA Varsity
podcast where we have interviews with experts from all over the
world, but we also have episodes called Uma Varsity Talks where
we discuss brutally honest experiences we go through as
women. So it's a, it's a beautiful
combination of both. So whether you're curious,
healing or ready to lead, we're here for you.
And we have also a community that you can join or you can
join us and then you can get access to Omar PDR or online
Women's Health and Square PDR. You can ask your questions to
experts that are all in our community as well.
We have different channels, different topics that we that
you can ask specific questions on.
We have resources and you can become a member.
And, and at the end of the year, we will also be launching A
crowdfunding to expand even more we have internationally and
build our all in one app. So we can also support us by
following us on our socials and going to our website.
We have weekly newsletters and our episodes, podcast episodes
come out every two weeks. We have monthly expert master
classes and offline events. And yeah, we're expanding
globally and we have women from all over the world joining and
it's and also some men over the world joining as well.
And so it's a really beautiful community and please join.
And it's it's, we would love to have you.
Yeah. And we'll include.
Those things, all of them in the show notes, especially the one
to the crowdfunding and also to the podcast.
So Joe, Sarah, thanks very much for an amazing conversation.
And listeners, thank you very much for listening.
And until the next episode, keep being awesome.
Well, that's a wrap for episode 108 of Women Disrupting Tech
with Joe Serra on how university helps women reclaim their health
and sexual well-being. Joe and I hope that you found
our conversation as inspiring and as healing as we intended it
to be. And if you have any questions or
comments for Joe or for me, please leave them in the
comments on Spotify, Apple or YouTube.
I do read all the comments and I will make sure that they are
answered. If you'd like to learn more
about Joe Serra or Yuma Versati, please check out the links in
the show notes. And you can find the show notes
at womendisruptingtech dot blog. Link is also in the description.
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