When motion designer Hedvig Ahlberg was a student in Stockholm, she and some female classmates noticed that women tended to take a backseat in creative projects, allowing male classmates to be front and centre with their work. Once in industry, she saw the trend continuing, so she co-founded Punanimation (now Panimation) with Bee Grandinetti and Linn Fritz, a multi-platform community of equality-driven women, trans and non-binary friends within the animation industry.

Launched as a Facebook group, they now have over 3,000 members. They went on to launch a job directory that helps the industry hire these amazing animators, and Google and Adobe have now hired from their site. She has lead workshops training animators to rethink gender representation in their work.

We sat down to discuss the value of diversity, both in the workforce, and specifically in those kooky cartoons that the coolest companies love these days.

Are you an animator? Join Panimation here: www.facebook.com/groups/654345878021827/ 

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Produced and recorded by Rena Niamh Smith with Chloe Vasseghi