Two significant economic indicators currently point in opposite directions: Unemployment is at a record high and so is the stock market. While this dichotomy reflects certain changes in traditional economic models, what does it say about the way COVID-19 has affected life in our communities? Or, what will be needed for individuals, communities, and businesses to recover from this crisis, given the changing nature of work? Can we rebuild the global system so that it supports local economies and what opportunities does this crisis offer to rebuild better from the ground up? Makers have a role in reshaping the economy through local production, workforce development, and small business: Together we can plant the seeds for a more participatory economy that benefits more people.
Date: Thursday, September 10th @ 4pm PT / 7pm ET
Join Make: and Nation of Makers in conversation with the following panelists as we take a look at a bottom-up approach to economic recovery. Register to be part of the conversation on Zoom or enjoy the show on Facebook.
- Victor Hwang is an economic growth expert whose ideas have shaped the economic lives of millions of people worldwide. His work has helped over 300 communities, cities, states, companies, and entire countries create greater prosperity. He is the founder of Right to Start, a campaign fighting to rebuild the economy by making entrepreneurial opportunity available to all. Read more about Victor’s work and the Right to Start movement here.
- Gina Lujan is a Social Entrepreneur, focusing on building community, business development, innovation, strategic planning and regional economic development at Hacker Lab. With over 20 years experience in business and technology, she also serves as Finance Advisor for Norcal SBDC, offering free advising, workshops, and funding assistance to small businesses.
- Ilana Preuss is the Founder of Recast City LLC, a consulting firm based in Washington D.C. that works with real estate developers, city and other civic leaders to integrate manufacturing space for small-scale producers into redevelopment projects and place-based economic development. She is passionate about making great places and sees that small-scale manufacturers are a missing piece in today’s mixed-use development and commercial property repositioning. Her forthcoming book: Recast Your City: How to Save Downtown with Small-Scale Manufacturing will be released by Island Press in 2021.
- Lee Wellington is the Founding Executive Director of the Urban Manufacturing Alliance (UMA), a national nonprofit that builds robust, inclusive manufacturing sectors in more than 250 cities across the US and built national learning communities on a range of issues including access to capital, community-embedded workforce programming, and mission driven industrial real estate development. In 2018, Lee guided UMA’s flagship research project, the State of Urban Manufacturing, a six-city study on small-scale manufacturing involving multiple Federal Reserve Banks, research universities, and hundreds of local manufacturing practitioners.
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