New Systems: Possibilities and Proposals
Moderators 
Deputy Director, The Next System Project
System change! Finding ways to radically transform the architecture of the current political-economic system in order to produce a more sustainable, equitable and just future.
Coordinator, USSEN / Wellspring Cooperative
Emily Kawano is an economist and the co-director of Wellspring Cooperative, a non-profit working to build a network of worker co-operatives in low income communities of Springfield, MA. She is also the coordinator of the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network and a Board member of RIPESS...
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Mike Lewis is the Founder and Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Community Renewal. Lewis is an author, practitioner, researcher, educator and organizer. He has a diverse base of experience building businesses, CED organizations, national and international networks and...
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Gus Speth: Co-chair of the Next System Project and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos, Speth is a also faculty at the Vermont School of Law and an award-winning author. Bringing decades of experience in sustainable development and environmental advocacy from organizations like...
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Ed Whitfeld is co-founder and co-managing director of the Fund for Democratic Communities (F4DC). A long time social justice activist, Ed had been involved in labor, community organizing and peace work since the late 60‘s when he was a student activist at Cornell University. He was the chairman of the Greensboro Redevelopment Commission for 9 years and formerly board chairman of Greensboro’s Triad Minority Development Corporation. In his work with F4DC, Ed helped initiate the formation of the Southern Grassroots Economies Project (SGEP) and their annual CoopEcon conferences aimed at networking and training among people interested in developing a cooperative new economy in the US South. He has visited and studied worker cooperative activities from the Evergreen Cooperatives of Cleveland, OH to the massive Mondragon Cooperatives Corporation in the Basque region of Spain. For Ed, helping people in communities engaged in meaningful, democratic, just, sustainable and productive activities is a key motivation., Fund for Democratic Communities
Ed Whitfield is a long time social justice activist who came through the late sixties black student movement to do labor, community and anti - war organizing in the South. In 2007, Ed Co-founded The Fund for Democratic Communities (F4DC) whose mission is to strengthen authentic democracy...
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