Epstein was connected to power. What happened when women called it out?

Summary

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Podcast Summary:

There Are No Girls on the Internet
Episode: Epstein was connected to power. What happened when women called it out?
Host: Bridget Todd
Release Date: August 5, 2025

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode revisits the story of Ottawa Mboya, a Kenyan technologist and former MIT grad student, who publicly challenged MIT’s Media Lab over its secret financial ties with Jeffrey Epstein—well before these ties sparked national outrage through Ronan Farrow’s reporting. Host Bridget Todd uses Ottawa’s journey as a lens to examine how marginalized women, especially Black women and women from the global South, are often the first to speak truth to institutional power online, but remain ignored, dismissed, or even attacked until powerful (often white male) figures echo their concerns. The episode asks: Who gets to be heard, and what does it cost to speak out from the margins?

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Background on the MIT/Epstein Scandal

• Bridget Todd recaps how MIT’s Media Lab accepted money from Epstein—even after his conviction for sex offenses—and attempted to cover it up, treating Epstein as a donor who could not be named, known internally as "Voldemort" ([05:12] – [06:39]).
• Whistleblowers like Sydney Swenson and prominent faculty such as Ethan Zuckerman resigned or spoke out.
• Ronan Farrow’s New Yorker exposé brought broader attention and led to the resignation of Media Lab director Joi Ito.

2. Ottawa Mboya’s Call-Out and Repercussions

• Ottawa, inspired by her feminist upbringing and experience in tech, wrote a piece in The Tech (MIT's student paper) calling for Ito’s resignation, before Farrow's reporting ([07:03] – [10:13]).

• Her op-ed received attacks focusing on her race, background, and outsider status:

  "There were so many comments that had to do with my race and ethnicity and where I'm from as opposed to... not agreeing with me and my ideas." —Ottawa ([10:44])

• After Farrow's article, responses shifted—but many only took it seriously when reported by a "powerful white man" ([10:44] – [12:03]).

3. Courage, Community & Backlash

• Ottawa describes being motivated by women who stood up to greater dangers, referencing Beneath the Tamarind Tree (about the Chibok schoolgirls’ kidnapping in Nigeria) as a source of courage:

  "If they have this kind of courage to stand with a gun to their face... then if I believe in this thing, the least I can do is say it with my chest." —Ottawa ([13:45])

• She details backlash: an MIT website supporting Ito sprung up, signed by professors and peers, directly targeting her article.

  "For me, a whole website springing up... just because one student wrote an article is shocking to me." —Ottawa ([15:49])

4. Power, Money, & Institutions

• Bridget Todd and Ottawa discuss how Epstein’s donations gave him social cover, reputational redemption, and inoculation from scrutiny:

  "Once you've got the protection of that kind of power, it can be hard to penetrate power." —Bridget ([20:19])

• Ottawa questions whether men in power even perceived the moral gravity of accepting Epstein’s money, emphasizing the silencing of victims through institutional complicity ([20:56] – [22:36]).

• Ottawa points out the extent of Epstein’s network and its deliberate diffuseness as protection:

  "It almost seems kind of impossible" to untangle.
  "I'm a firm believer nothing is impossible... but there is, you know, especially with the people who are closer with him, there is a link with those people and victims." —Ottawa ([25:34], [25:43])

5. Community Response & The Bold Prize

• MIT’s Disobedience Award (with irony, a replica given to Epstein) prompts conversation about who gets rewarded for "speaking truth to power."

• Sabrina Hersey Issa, founder of Be Bold Media, describes seeing Ottawa’s leadership erased or vilified, while powerful men’s courage is validated:

  "The invisibility of her leadership. When a white guy says the same thing... his safety... was never in question." —Sabrina ([35:56])

• Sabrina launches the Bold Prize, crowdfunding over $40,000 to honor Ottawa and reframe narratives of moral courage ([36:55] – [41:29]):

  "I wanted this young woman to know that I see her... I wanted to use my voice and my power and my relationships and resources to shift the conversation from blame to leadership, from the world as it is to the world that it should be." —Sabrina ([36:55])

6. Advice, Legacy, and Hope for Change

• Ottawa, reflecting on her experience, counsels women to draw strength from others before speaking out:

  "You're gonna need so much energy to keep going and to, like, not backtrack in what you said because people don't agree with you.... drawing power from other women in history and time... gives you stamina." —Ottawa ([44:17])

• Bridget and Ottawa emphasize that community and solidarity can create new, bolder systems, not just call out broken ones ([45:03]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Race, Power, and Whose Voices Matter

• Ottawa:

  "It's only when a powerful, and not just white man, but a powerful white man writes about it, that it's enough to sort of sway people's opinions or feelings, or at least their vocal ones." ([10:44])

On the Cost of Speaking Out

• Ottawa:

  "It sucked. I mean, the very next day... a website comes out saying, we support Joe Ito. And it's signed by pretty much like every professor at the Media Lab... And so, you know, it wasn't nice. I was getting, you know, some not nice comments, but I was able to ignore most of them and feel okay. But it really highlighted to me how fearful people can get when you speak the truth or when you say your own truth." ([15:49])

On Institutional Complicity

• Ottawa:

  "There is a massive incentive to ignore certain problems or ethics if you're going to get power by ignoring them.... I don't think men get it all the time." ([20:56])

On Building a Different Future

• Sabrina:

  "I want to build a future with leaders like Ottawa who not only make choices to do the hard, see something hard and do it anyway, but are willing to absorb the blowback that comes with it because it's the right thing to do." ([40:30])

On the Power of Community

• Bridget:

  "Women being in community with each other and lifting each other up and inspiring each other to speak our truths. Well, that's powerful enough to create new systems..." ([45:03])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:45] – Trigger warning, episode introduction
• [05:12 – 06:39] – MIT’s cover-up and Farrow’s exposé recap
• [07:03 – 10:13] – Ottawa’s background, upbringing, and motivation
• [10:44 – 12:03] – Why voices from the margins are dismissed
• [13:45 – 15:49] – Finding courage and facing backlash
• [20:56 – 23:18] – Institutional complicity, money, and the structure of power
• [26:39 – 28:08] – The challenge of changing beloved institutions
• [36:55 – 41:29] – Creation of the Bold Prize and reframing leadership
• [44:17 – 45:03] – Advice for women speaking truth to power

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Takeaway

This episode powerfully illustrates the personal cost of public dissent when you stand outside systems of power, especially for Black women and other marginalized voices. It highlights how communities of women—connecting across continents and professional hierarchies—can intervene where institutions and powerful individuals fail to act. The creation of the Bold Prize is not just a story of recognition, but of rewriting the rules for whose courage and leadership get celebrated, and how a network of voices can start to shift the future from the ground up.

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Transcript

[Ottawa Mboya]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[Podcast Narrator/Host (possibly Will Smith or promotional voice)]

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[Bridget Todd]

This episode includes mentions of sex trafficking, sex crimes against minors, and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. There Are no Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and unbossed creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are no Girls On. Right now, one of the biggest questions making the rounds is what exactly is Donald Trump's connection to Jeffrey Epstein? We recently broke down why those questions still linger and what they might mean in a recent episode of the show, which we'll put in the show notes. But Trump is not the only powerful figure with ties to Epstein. In fact, one of the very first episodes we ever did on There Are no Girls on the Internet was a conversation with Kenyan technologist Ottawa Mboyan. Back then, Aduba was a grad student at MIT's influential media lab and became one of the first people to publicly call out her own university's connections to Epstein, ultimately calling for the resignation of the lab's director over it. It was one of the stories that initially inspired me to start this podcast in the first place. You know, here was this brave student speaking up about what she knew to be wrong in her own tech community, and instead of support, she faced attacks for it. And I guess that's tale as old as time. The cost of being right. So today we're revisiting that important conversation. You've probably heard about American financier Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein pled guilty and was convicted in 2008 of procuring an underage girl for sex. In July of last year, he was arrested on charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking. He was found dead in prison in August. In addition to his connection to powerful political figures like Bill Clinton, Queen Elizabeth's son Prince Andrew, and credibly accused rapist president Donald Trump, Epstein also had deep connections to the tech world despite being a convicted sex offender. On September 7, Ronan Farrow published an expose in the New Yorker that found that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or mit, had a deeper fundraising relationship with Epstein than it had previously acknowledged in even as officials knew he was a convicted sex offender and that the university went to great lengths to cover it up. Now, here's just some of what Ferrell found. Even though Epstein was disqualified on MIT's official donor database, the Media Lab continued to accept money from him, consulted him about the use of funds, and by Marking his contributions as anonymous, avoided disclosing their full extent. Both publicly and within the university. Epstein appeared to act as a go between for wealthy donors like Bill Gates to pump money into MIT. According to Farrow, MIT's efforts to conceal Epstein's connections to the university went so far that staff referred to Epstein as Voldemort, or he who must not be named whistleblower. Sydney Swenson, a former MIT development associate, told Farrow that the lab's leadership made it explicit, even in her earliest days with them, that Epstein's donations had to be kept secret. Staffers knew about MIT's relationship with Epstein. Prominent faculty advisor Ethan Zuckerman resigned in protest after Farrow's piece was published. Joy Ito, the director of the MIT Media Lab, resigned. In the latest fallout connected to Jeffrey Epstein, MIT is opening an investigation into its ties to the financier and convicted sex offender. The announcement came just one day after the New Yorker revealed that MIT's Media Lab was attempting to conceal donations from Epstein. Now, there's a lot to say about Jeffrey Epstein, but this story isn't really about him. It's about courage, community, and power. We hear a lot about Epstein's horrific crimes, and most people credit Ronan Farrow with bringing their full scope to light. But even before Ronan Farrow's piece was published, women in the MIT community spoke up. And we should honor their voices, too.

[Podcast Narrator/Host (possibly Will Smith or promotional voice)]

To the future. MIT's Media Lab. A place that follows crazy ideas wherever they may lead. We get to think about the future.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Announcer]

What does the world look like?

[Podcast Narrator/Host (possibly Will Smith or promotional voice)]

10 years, 20 years, 30 years? What should it look like?

[Bridget Todd]

The MIT Media Lab is an important place. CBS even dubbed it the Future Factory. And it's where technologist Ottawa Mboya knew she had to be.

[Ottawa Mboya]

Yeah, I came here because it is sort of a place for misfits, the Media Lab. It is interdisciplinary and has sort of the intersection of tech and art and design. And that was what I was looking for when I graduated from undergrad. I worked for a couple years back in Nairobi, where I'm from, and became a VR developer on the side on top of my job and needed to. I was sort of like looking for somewhere to find myself. And I'd heard about the Media Lab and how sort of civic minded one of the groups was called Civic Media. And our motto is Tech for Social Change. And I was like, well, that sounds like exactly what I want to do. Yeah. So I applied and then it worked out.

[Bridget Todd]

Ottawa was raised and shaped by a community of strong, resilient women. And that upbringing has been a big part of how she shows up to the world today.

[Ottawa Mboya]

Yeah, for sure. I mean, my work is always about women, and it's always about. It is always about women in Africa. Sometimes it's a bit more general than that, but I have worked in Nairobi my whole life. I've studied away from Nairobi, but always try to bring back my research and the questions that I'm asking to home and the women that I've worked with in informal settlements in Kenya. But, you know, that's just my research. But how I approach studying and how I approach being in big institutions is definitely sort of inspired by how I was raised by my mom and my grandma, and I have, like, a thousand aunts. Grew up in something of a matriarchy, I would say, so. Yeah, for sure.

[Bridget Todd]

So you were raised in, like, a community of strong, badass women.

[Ottawa Mboya]

Yeah, and like, really scary ones, too. So, like, you look at them with a lot of love and admiration, but also a lot of fear.

[Bridget Todd]

Ada Wa works with virtual reality, so that means she has to be able to imagine worlds that haven't even been seen yet. It's a spirit that drives her both personally and professionally. Do you think that that sort of work has helped you kind of imagine a future where things can be better than they are?

[Ottawa Mboya]

Yeah, I think so. I would say so. I think I've always sort of had that in me before I started playing on VR and AI. And I think those projects are sort of things that are already within me as opposed to things that have made me think a certain way. And, I don't know, I grew up just reading and listening to a lot of amazing women and men. Actually, my grand. Both my grandpas are fantastic men and have been so influential in shaping Kenya and imagining Kenya differently that I. Yeah, I would say it's totally in me. And, you know, when I wrote that, it wasn't even so much that I was. So when I was sort of talking against my director, it wasn't even so much that I was imagining a different future. It was more like this current present isn't. Something is off. Something is not right. And everything I've been taught since growing up is, if something's not right, you fix it or you say something about it, but you don't sit around and do nothing.

[Bridget Todd]

As a grad student in the Media, Labor Ottawa published a piece in the Tech MIT student publication about the university's connection to Jeffrey Epstein. In it, she called for the resignation of Joy Ito, the head of the MIT Media Lab. Her piece ran weeks Before Ronan Farrow would go on to echo her points in his New Yorker expose on September 7th. The only difference is Ottawa called for Ito to resign. And after Farrow's piece was published, he actually did. Did you ever feel like people have an easier time taking the situation seriously when it's reported by a white man?

[Ottawa Mboya]

I mean, yeah, for sure. And I appreciate Ronan Farrow's work a lot, and we actually got to meet him, and we kind of talked about this. But, you know, senior Swenson, she was the real hero of the story. I mean, she was the actual whistleblower. And sometimes people treat me like I was a whistleblower when I didn't whistleblow anything. I just had the same information that everybody else had and sort of said my opinion about it. And for sure, I mean, even on the comments on my article, like, there were so many comments that had to do with my race and ethnicity and where I'm from as opposed to, you know, not agreeing with me and my ideas. It was very much like, well, you're not from America. You don't know what we're talking about. And then Ronan Farrow writes this article, and, of course, everyone just jumped ship. And, you know, I totally understood my director resigning after that. I was just more shocked of how many people said, oh, we were wrong after the article. Because to me, it's kind of like we already had that information beforehand, and people had made up those decisions, their decision to support him at that point. And it's only when a powerful, and not just white man, but a powerful white man writes about it, that it's enough to sort of sway people's opinions or feelings, or at least their vocal ones.

[Bridget Todd]

So I heard an NPR interview where you described your meeting with Ito, where he basically said, I agree with all the things that you're saying, all the things that you say.

[Sabrina Hersey Issa]

I did.

[Bridget Todd]

I totally did. You're completely right. Except I don't think I should lose my job over it.

[Ottawa Mboya]

Yeah. And there were a lot of people who felt that way, and a lot of people still feel that way, because he kind of was the heart of the Media Lab, and a lot of people depended on him for their projects, for funding, for, you know, other people were coming into the Media Lab for the first time under his leadership. So it makes sense that some people feel that way. I think the Ronan Farrow thing was interesting because we had that conversation one afternoon, and then it was that same afternoon that Ronan Farrow's article dropped. So he, between our meeting and him resigning was Maybe four to five hours. Like really not much. Yeah. So, you know, it was overall like really shocking. But to me that's again, a power thing. It's totally different situation if one first year master student who, you know, has no power whatsoever says you should resign. And it's a totally different thing if Ronan Farrow comes after you. And he had, he has a lot of on stake. It's not just his job at the media lab. He has a lot of venture capital and a lot of other endeavors that I think must have been in his head to protect. But yeah, I mean, I don't know what it was that made him cave in at that moment.

[Bridget Todd]

It's easy to think about marginalized people who speak up in these situations as being fearless. But Ottawa actually remembers being pretty scared and doing it anyway. She drew strength from the courage of other women and girls on the continent.

[Ottawa Mboya]

The fear I was feeling was actually from my mom because she didn't want me to write the article. And I don't like disagreeing with my mom that we just did on this particular issue. And she was coming from a perspective of fear or trying to take care of her baby that she sent to America to study. Like, you know, she was scared that something might happen to my degree or that I might lose my visa or something and not be able to finish. But I don't know, I didn't have that fear so much. And I just happened to be reading a really amazing book called Beneath the Tamarind Tree, which is by Isha Sassay of CNN about the Boko Haram bring back our girls story in Nigeria. And the amount of courage there was so wild that it just so happened that this is all happening at the same time. And I'm seeing myself as such a small player and seeing the thing that I want to do is not that big compared to some of the things that these girls went through and some of the things that they fought for against literal terrorists. And I was like, okay, if they have this kind of courage to stand with a gun to their face and not change their religion because it's what they believe in, then if I believe in this thing, the least I can do is say it with my chest. So that was how I was feeling. So I was actually feeling like kind of empowered, inspired while I was writing it. I sometimes describe myself as a radical feminist, but there's nothing radical about it. It's just that the word feminist sometimes seems radical to people. But I just am a product of so many amazing women that it's not shocking that I search for even more inspiration from other women on the continent, around the world.

[Bridget Todd]

After her letter calling for Ito to resign was published, things got rough for Ottawa. So what was the climate like for you at MIT after you published your piece?

[Ottawa Mboya]

It sucked. I mean, the very next day or the day after I published this article, like, a website comes out saying, we support Joe Ito. And it's signed by pretty much like every professor at the Media Lab and it's signed by all, you know, my colleagues and all these people. And it's a direct response to my one article. And so, you know, it wasn't nice. I was getting, you know, some not nice comments, but I was able to ignore most of them and feel okay. But it really highlighted to me how fearful people can get when you speak the truth or when you say your own truth. Because for me, a whole website springing up with like, it's signed with all these hundreds of names. Just because one student wrote an article is shocking to me. And that student has no power. Like, I don't know why there was so much fear or so much anger or so much defense because nobody else. There was lots of articles about it. There was lots of articles that were very nonpartisan and saying what happened, but nobody asked for him to be resigned to resign except me. And it's almost as if, like that one statement or that one article, like, was like a wave through the Media Lab and everyone was like, pushing back, as if what I said might sort of break the whole Media Lab or make it fall apart. And some people till today think it's my fault, like for sure. And, you know, there's nothing I can do about that. And I'm not going to sort of try to pander to other people, but I don't know, it just showed me. It really taught me the power of words.

[Bridget Todd]

We'll be right back after this quick break.

[Podcast Narrator/Host (possibly Will Smith or promotional voice)]

For 100 days, I'm going to cross the seven continents because the answers to everything important are out there at the edges of our world. I'm stepping into the unknown. Where are we going to see our planet? This is amazing as it's never been seen before. From Pole to Pole Pole to Pole with Will Smith. Series premiere tonight at 9 on National Geographic Stream on Disney and Hulu.

[Ottawa Mboya]

Show me the way.

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[Bridget Todd]

And we're back. By establishing financial relationships with respected organizations like mit, Epstein got powerful people, mostly men, to provide cover, protection and most importantly, reputational redemption. Once you've got the protection of that kind of power, it can be hard to penetrate power. Powerful friends, powerful names, powerful money. All of it makes it harder for people who exist outside of that power to speak out about bad behavior. Why do you think the Media Lab overlooked Epstein's crimes? Do you think it was just the money and they didn't care where it came from or do you think it was something else?

[Ottawa Mboya]

I know that some people knew and some people didn't know. So I can really only speak for the person that I know for sure knew, which is Joey. And the rest I don't know. And, you know, he wielded a lot of power in this lab. We do know for a fact that there were people who, including my advisor, Ethan Zuckerman, who spoke out and said that this is not a good idea and said that we shouldn't take money from Epstein, and they were ignored. I mean, the hard, cold truth is that money is power. And there is a massive incentive to ignore certain problems or ethics if you're going to get power by ignoring them. I think the other thing to remember with the Epstein situation is that he wasn't giving the media that much money anyway. I think a lot of the money that was an MIT report just came out on the funding issue, and we found out that Joey was actually trying to secure a much bigger pot of funding for his own venture capital funds. So huge incentive to ignore what was sort of on the surface. And then the other thing is just I don't think men get it all the time. Like, I don't think I sometimes I really think that some people thought that it's just not that big a deal because they have no understanding on what that relationship, even in and of itself without money, means for the victims of Epstein's. We have no idea how this consolidation of power represses the victims and silences them.

[Bridget Todd]

It almost sounds like Epstein was trying to use his money to kind of create this cover so that if anybody ever tried to call him out on his actions, he could just be like, oh, well, look at all these powerful, influential men I surround myself with.

[Ottawa Mboya]

In some ways, was really smart because he didn't actually have that much money. He wasn't a Bill Gates, but had enough to sort of know the right people and actually build a social circle around himself that included politicians, scientists, artists, businessmen. And it was so strong that everybody wanted to be a part of it. And it was Epstein's name that you had to know to get sort of in that circle.

[Bridget Todd]

Ottawa still thinks highly of mit, but the backlash she faced for speaking out against Joy Ito showed her that things are not always as shiny as they look from the outside.

[Ottawa Mboya]

I think the media lab, you know, it's hard because I love this place. Like, I've had a fantastic two years. I've learned so much, I've grown so much, and I wouldn't change it for anything. But I think this experience has just been such an example of that because it's so shiny on the outside, like, it's so glamorous. Everyone wants to be. But that doesn't mean that we don't have issues, institutional issues of power and race and class and all these other things that might make the play sound not so amazing.

[Bridget Todd]

Do you think that there should be more scrutiny on other powerful men who had, like, financial entanglements with Epstein? I feel like a lot of them have sort of been able to skirt public scrutiny and like, public question asking about what exactly their dealings with this person were.

[Ottawa Mboya]

Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. I think, you know, from the out, I mean, because I can't speak for much more than mit, but I know, you know, even Harvard had relations with. Took a lot of money from Epstein, but they just declined to even talk about it. And so it just. They sort of took the mom path and everyone forgot about it. Whereas at MIT it was so widely talked about and Epstein's network is so extensive that going through every single man who interacted with him, or a woman for that, for that matter, actually who interacted with him and took money from him and what they knew and how they knew, it is extremely difficult. So I don't know how to do that. But there should be a way larger conversation around these networks of power, whether we isolate individuals within them or not. And I think that also has a lot to do with who's willing to speak, who's willing to come forward with information, because the last week, you know, when we don't know anything, all we can do is speculate and they have power and that doesn't really work. So, yeah, I don't know. I feel like everyone should be held accountable for sure. But it's. I don't even know where you start with Epstein.

[Bridget Todd]

You know, I almost wonder if this is part of a deliberate strategy of Epstein's getting his money in so many powerful places and hands and institutions that untangling it almost seems kind of impossible.

[Ottawa Mboya]

Yeah. And I'm a firm believer nothing is impossible. But, you know, there's such a close link. And I'm not saying that anyone who took his money did anything more than that, but there is, you know, especially with the people who are closer with him, there is a link with those people and victims, you know, And I think right now what needs to happen is that the victims narratives need to be centered, you know, and the people who have been hurt by Epstein need to have space to say, you know, this is how I was hurt. This is how I'm feeling. This is what I need to recover. And sort of, if they feel up for it, these are the people who hurt me. Beyond Epstein, it's hard to admit that.

[Bridget Todd]

People and institutions that mean a lot to us are actually fostering abusive behavior. Joy was a beloved figure at mit, and that made it that much harder for the community to reckon with the fact that he enabled, benefited from, and covered up for an abuser.

[Ottawa Mboya]

Joey himself was a figure of so much awe and inspiration and resource to the Media Lab students and faculty that people didn't want to believe that, you know, he had done this thing that they didn't agree with. And it was much easier if we just said, okay, let's sweep it under the rug and move on and pretend like this never happened. And so I understand that to some degree, but, you know, the world is, like, constantly changing, and I think if you're sort of always that person on the bottom of the ladder in certain societies, like, it's always. It always comes from the bottom up. Like, it's always that change in institution is never going to happen by the people who. For who the institution is working and the Media Lab was working. For me, it wasn't. You know, I was having a great time, but I didn't have the same feelings about the director that most of my naysayers had. You know, I wasn't actually giving up, I don't know, funding for a specific project by calling him out. So in other ways, it was easier for me than I. You know, I get why it was easier for me than other people, but for a place that calls itself the Future Factory, for a place that prides itself in imagining and creating the future, literally, like, the standard has got to be higher, and it's got to be higher. Not from a tech perspective, but from a human perspective, too.

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And so this is where it starts.

[Ottawa Mboya]

To look like the Academy Awards. So first, I want to invite up.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Announcer]

The winners of the $250,000 disobedience award, the second largest cast prize at MIT, I would say, after the Emelson Award for Innovation. So Tarana Burke and Sherry Martz and Bethann McLaughlin, please come up.

[Ottawa Mboya]

With this award.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Announcer]

We are recognizing their leadership and dedication in amplifying the voices of survivors of sexual violence and harassment, fomenting positive changes towards gender equality, and demonstrating defiance in the face of oppression and apathy.

[Ottawa Mboya]

Thank you very much.

[Bridget Todd]

In 2017, MIT started the disobedience Award, a yearly award given to people in tech who Speak truth to power. The award came with a $250,000 no strings attached prize. In 2018. It was awarded to MeToo creator Tarana Burke, Beth Ann McLaughlin and Shara Martz as representatives of MeToo and the MeToo in STEM movement that highlighted people speaking up against sexual harassment in technology. The physical award is a glass orb. And in a particularly disgusting piece of irony, because of his financial contributions to mit, convicted sex offender and serial predator Epstein received a replica of that very award that same year, too. I know you're infuriated now, but this is where the story gets a little bit brighter. My friend Sabrina Hersey Issa is the kind of person I hope that you all have in your lives. Mentor doesn't really cover just how impactful she's been in my own life. She's a human rights technologist and the founder of Be Bold Media. And Sabrina has never stopped uplifting other women or speaking truth to power, even when she gets shit for it. Sabrina had never spoken to Ottawa, but she did read her story.

[Sabrina Hersey Issa]

A friend of mine sent me a link to Ottawa's OP ed in the MIT student newspaper. And when I read it, I thought it was so. At first, I thought this was so beautifully written, and it was written from a place of love and leadership. And clearly this was a voice of someone who cares deeply, not just for women and children, but also for a community. Then I saw the arc of how her OP Ed was being received in the MIT community and in the broader technology community. And that is when things started to not sit well with me in our. In Bridget, our shared women in technology community. I saw Ottawa's OP Ed being received as like, this is a brave call for a student. But it also, I saw a lot of echoing of helplessness from very powerful women in technology and a lot of wringing of hands and a lot of, oh, what do we do now? Or I feel hopeless. And when I read Ottawa's OP ed, I felt the opposite of hopeless. I felt hope. I felt, oh, if this is what someone could say with so much to lose and so much on the line, then anything is possible. And then I saw it absorbed in the broader public conversation around Epstein and mit. And I saw Ottawa as being demonized and being framed her. I saw Ottawa's public leadership being framed as a problem instead of a blessing. And I was not okay watching that. I saw, you know, Reddit forums where people were like, if she doesn't like it, she can go back to Africa. I saw a lot of hate being spewed on Twitter I saw so like, the further the rings of influence went out, the more I saw this woman's brave call of public leadership being received. How most black women who are moral, who practice moral courage in public spaces being received. And I was not okay with that. And you know me and you know I walked through fires in the past where that was the arc that played out. And I knew I could not in good conscience say that, do nothing and be okay with that. Or say nothing and do it and be okay with that.

[Bridget Todd]

More There are no girls on the Internet after this quick break.

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[Bridget Todd]

And we're back. Even though they had never met, Sabrina was inspired by Ottawa's actions at mit. She remembered all the times in her own career that she spoke out against sexism and racism and got vitriol for it. Speaking out takes guts in leadership. And Sabrina couldn't rewatch the pattern of a woman without institutional power behind her being criticized for daring to speak up for what's right, even as Ronan Farrow was praised for doing the exact same thing. And while his reporting was a big part of why Ito stepped down, it wasn't Farrow who was risking his personal safety by speaking up. It was Ottawa.

[Sabrina Hersey Issa]

The thing about this that really struck me was not just the vulnerability of her visibility, like when she did step up and speak out and say something, she was met with not even no support, but with a lot of hatred and anger. But the invisibility of her leadership. When a white guy says the same thing that she said and he's not even a part of the MIT community, his safety, Ronan Farrell's safety was never in question. And I wasn't okay with watching yet another pattern of someone outside of a community, an institution with prestige, be validated as a legitimate voice. I didn't want to be. I didn't want my silence to be complicit in continuing that pattern.

[Bridget Todd]

Sabrina thought that Ottawa should get some kind of recognition per actions at mit. That's when Sabrina got the idea for the Bolt Prize.

[Sabrina Hersey Issa]

MIT has this thing Called the Disobedience Prize. It is a $250,000 cash award, no strings attached, given to social change leaders who speak truth to power and practice moral leadership and ethics. And I thought, MIT has no right to say what ethical leadership looks like if they are letting this man stay in this role, if they're letting this happen to young black women in their community. So I was like, hey, I have a voice, and I have power, and I can do something and I can say something. I wanted this young woman to know that I see her. And then I was like, you know what? Why don't I give you an award? So I said, would it be okay if I crowdfunded a leadership prize for you? And she was like, that would be really sweet. Thank you so much. I wrote a letter that you see on bullprice.com where I said that, you know, I do not know her, but I admire her courage and that I wasn't okay watching a young black woman speak up and lead with courage and not only not be seen, but also be harmed for it. I think if we need to, there's the world as it is and the world as it should be. And if we want to build the world as it should be, then we need to reframe what leadership looks like so that when these events happen, people like Ottawa are not seen as the bad actors. They're seen as the future, and they're seen as world builders. So I wanted to use my voice and my power and my relationships and resources to shift the conversation from blame to leadership, from the world as it is to the world that it should be, and that it is not just her right to speak out to protect women in her community, but also it's within all of our abilities to speak out and do the same thing. The other piece that I was that did not sit well with me was watching really powerful people that we both know not recognize their own power and agency. So I want, I believe. And the power of invitation. And I don't believe that they weren't doing anything out of malice or ignorance, but the fact that an opportunity for them to participate in something different and transformative wasn't there. So I decided to create it. We are going to refashion the Disobedience Prize, and we're going to make it the Bold Prize. And I called it the Bold Prize for three specific reasons. One, when Ethan Zuckerman first announced it and his thing, that's when I was like, someone should give him an award. The second thing in Ottawa's piece, she uses the phrase, I stand by my advisor. It's Ethan's documentary advisor. She wrote, I stand by my advisor and his bold decision to step down. And I was like, oh, that word bold. And then three, when I was in a situation where I was speaking out against sexual misconduct and racial injustice, one of the people who were complicit in covering it up had the audacity to call me bold. And I thought to myself, yeah, you know, I am bold. And maybe this wouldn't be so hard if more people were.

[Bridget Todd]

MIT's Media Lab is called the Future Factory. But do we even want a future designed by powerful people that would look the other way when it comes to abuse? What kind of future would that leave us with?

[Sabrina Hersey Issa]

The choices that MIT made to enable Epstein and be complicit in covering for sexual predator, those were deliberate decisions and choices that were made outside of a moral compass. And so to somehow envelope that into, like, they get to be leaders on what ethics look like, and not only just what ethics look like, but what the future can be in hold. I don't want a future imagined by people who participate in systems like this. So I want to build a future with leaders like Ottawa who not only make choices to do the hard, see something hard and do it anyway, but are willing to absorb the blowback that comes with it because it's the right thing to do.

[Bridget Todd]

Through crowdfunding, Sabrina raised over $40,000 for Ottawa as the inaugural recipient of the Bold prize. The average donation was $75.

[Ottawa Mboya]

I was just so in awe. I was like, oh, my God, thank you so much. But not just because, I mean, this was a stranger and not just any studio. She was a black woman as well, and had just somehow, like, seen my pain from far away or seen the struggle and was like, I need to do something for this woman. And so that was the true, like, prize for me. It was like, how many people came together to support my voice when I had felt for a long time that I was on the outside of things?

[Bridget Todd]

I feel just for journalistic integrity purposes, I should say I'm one of the fun. I'm one of the donators of that.

[Ottawa Mboya]

Thank you.

[Bridget Todd]

You know, I. I agree. I thought the idea that Sabrina, who has been a really powerful force in my own life, just personally would reach out to you like that. I thought that was so beautiful. And it really goes back to what you were saying at the beginning of our interview about sort of being lifted up by this community of black women and lifting them up as well. Like, it's just. It is really special. And I think it was important for me, even though, you know, you and I had never met, it was important for me to let you know that people out there had your back. We were rooting for you, like, watching what you were doing, like, what your bravery and your courage reverberates. You know, you never know who is going to be seeing what you did, and that's going to be the reason why they speak up.

[Ottawa Mboya]

Thank you. Yeah. I think that's also been another big thing that I've gained, is you just never know whose life you're going to touch or who's who, like, where your words will reach. And there's been so many, like, random people who were, you know, saying what you're saying, like, oh, you gave me the courage to do this, or, you gave me the courage to write this and to say this and whatever. And I've been like, okay, like, this can be a movement. Like, the Bold Prize can be a movement. Like, it can be something that people aspired to get. I didn't have a vendetta against Joey, like, personally either. So it wasn't like, I want him fired or to resign and would only be happy once that happened because clearly this issue was deeply structural within MIT as well. So I felt vindicated after, like, maybe, you know, time after when, you know, with the Bull Prize and with the letters of support and, you know, by people encouraging me to, like, keep speaking my mind. But we still have so much work to do, like, as a institution here.

[Bridget Todd]

What's your advice for other women about speaking truth to power, even when it's tough?

[Ottawa Mboya]

The first is I really think it is a lonely process and it isn't easy. I've. You know, I learned that firsthand. And I think this might sound, like, kind of mythical, but I think drawing power from others before you do what you need to do is so important because you're gonna need so much energy to keep going and to, like, not backtrack in what you said because people don't agree with you. And so, like, if that's reading or if that's talking to actual people or if that's listening to Lizzo, like, literally drawing power from other women in history and time, because there's so many who have done the thing that you want to do is so important, gives you stamina.

[Bridget Todd]

Institutions like MIT are powerful, but so are women. So is community. Women being in community with each other and lifting each other up and inspiring each other to speak our truths. Well, that's powerful enough to create new systems and women can envision bolder futures and brighter realities when we come together. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach [e-mail] youm can also find transcripts for today's [e-mail] There are no Girls on the Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of iHeartRadio and unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland is our Executive producer, Tari Harrison is our producer and sound Engineer Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Dodd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Ottawa Mboya]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.