{"id":8463,"date":"2013-12-01T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-12-01T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/business.cornell.edu\/centers\/2013\/12\/01\/mike-sweeney-mba-89\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T18:18:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T18:18:07","slug":"mike-sweeney-mba-89","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/business.cornell.edu\/centers\/2013\/12\/01\/mike-sweeney-mba-89\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Sweeney, MBA \u201989"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Empowering Women, One Video View at a Time<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"320\" height=\"320\" src=\"https:\/\/business.cornell.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/06\/mike-sweeney-fereshteh-forough.jpg\" alt=\"Mike Sweeney, MBA \u201989\" class=\"wp-image-8464\" srcset=\"https:\/\/business.cornell.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/06\/mike-sweeney-fereshteh-forough.jpg 320w, https:\/\/business.cornell.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/06\/mike-sweeney-fereshteh-forough-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/business.cornell.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/06\/mike-sweeney-fereshteh-forough-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 320px) 100vw, 320px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><br \/>For the past two years, Mike Sweeney, managing partner of Film Annex Capital Partners, has been deeply involved in promoting WomensAnnex.com \u2014 an interactive web platform that supports the empowerment of women in developing countries. The idea for the platform, Sweeney says, grew out of a conversation Film Annex\u2019s founder Francesco Rulli had with Roya Mahboob, a young female technology entrepreneur busy setting up U.S.-funded Internet services for Afghan universities. After Mahboob expressed her desire to create Internet classrooms at the high school level in Afghanistan, Film Annex helped fund the development of ten Internet classrooms and two Women\u2019s Annex studios, equipped with digital video cameras and editing equipment that in total serve 40,000 students in Afghanistan. Shortly after, a unique place under the Film Annex umbrella was created for sharing that content \u2014 as well as content created by and for women in countries around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sweeney says the business model for WomensAnnex.com is a \u201cunique mix of sustainable philanthropy and business.\u201d Counting on better content to drive more traffic in years to come, Film Annex is investing $3 million annually to help populate the site with meaningful and attractive niche content. Proceeds are shared with content makers based on what\u2019s called their Buzz Score, an algorithm that factors in quality, frequency, and influence. Some five thousand women from Afghanistan contribute content to the platform, says Sweeney. While for many the payouts are relatively small, the top ten to twenty earn up to $6,000 to $9,000 per year in a country where the average income is less than $1,000. This enables the women to \u201chave a really significant influence in their community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sweeney\u2019s primary role in the company is attracting publicity and seeking out partnerships. But he also serves as executive producer of the Women\u2019s Annex\u2019s highest-profile program: Hedgers, Bankers, and Thinkers, a recurring series recorded at the Film Annex studios in Manhattan in which host Fereshteh Forough (\u201cthe Katie Couric of Afghanistan,\u201d he calls her) interviews Wall Street hedge fund managers, bankers, and other \u201cthought leaders\u201d in the New York City financial community about their philanthropic efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As Sweeney and the rest of the Women\u2019s Annex team look toward the future, they continue to think big: Over the next few years, they hope to provide Internet access to more than three million people in Central Asia and the Middle East. \u201cWhat we want,\u201d Sweeney says, \u201cis to be the dominant platform for women and children to tell their stories in a way that can be heard all over the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Empowering Women, One Video View at a Time For the past two years, Mike Sweeney, managing partner of Film Annex Capital Partners, has been deeply involved in promoting WomensAnnex.com \u2014&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":8464,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[171],"tags":[196],"ppma_author":[],"class_list":["post-8463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-profiles","tag-archived"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.2 (Yoast SEO v28.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Mike Sweeney, MBA \u201989 - Cornell Business Centers &amp; 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