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Featuring Keynote Speaker
David Korten
Former Harvard Business School Professor & Author of Several Books, Including Agenda for a New Economy
April 7 in Calgary - April 8 in Edmonton
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Public Interest Alberta's 4th Annual Advocacy Conference
Took place April 8 - 10, 2010
Public Interest Alberta is pleased to have hosted another successful conference. Our annual conferences provide essential opportunities to work with other individuals and organizations in developing positive solutions and strengthening our commitment to effective advocacy in the public interest.
Check back for the full conference report, video interviews with conference speakers, and more.
Keynote Speaker: David Korten
Visionary author and lecturer Dr. David Korten spoke on the themes of his most recent book, Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth, which sets forth a framework for an economy designed to bring humans into balance with Earth’s biosphere, equitably share the wealth of our common human heritage, and make democracy a living practice. Korten, a former Harvard Business School professor, is known for his clear and unflinching critique of an economic system ruled by global corporations and financial markets and his practical proposals for a future in which economic power is rooted in people and communities of place.
Korten's previous books include The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, The Post-Corporate World: Life After Capitalism, and the international best seller When Corporations Rule the World. He is founder/president of the People-Centered Development Forum, board chair of YES! Magazine, a board member of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, and co-chair of the New Economy Working Group.
In addition, Korten delivered a keynote address in Calgary on April 7, 2010
The conference also featured first-rate plenary speakers on key topics, including:
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Meera Karunananthan
Meera Karunananthan is the national water campaigner at the Council of Canadians. She works with Council of Canadians chapters and communities across the country to promote federal, provincial and municipal laws that protect watersheds and promote public control over water resources and services. In addition, Meera is currently working on a master's thesis examining the corporate appropriation of right to water discourse and its impact on public policy. |
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Robert Chernomas
Robert Chernomas is a professor of economics at the University of Manitoba. He has published in both the academic and popular literature with respect to macroeconomics, health care economics, and in the area of social economic determinants of health. Robert has been co-chair of the Alternative Federal Budget as the representative of Choices, a political action organization based in Winnipeg. Robert is currently a board member of the Council of Canadians. He is co-author (with Ian Hudson) of Social Murder and Other Shortcomings of Conservative Economics. His next book, due out in early 2010, is The Gatekeeper: 60 Years of Economics According to the New York Times, also with co-author Ian Hudson.
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Alex Molnar
Alex Molnar is one of America’s leading experts on the commercialization of public education. He is a professor of education policy and director of the Education Policy Studies Laboratory at Arizona State University. He has written numerous books, including Giving Kids the Business: the Commercialism of America's Schools, and School Commercialism: From Democratic Ideal to Market Commodity.
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Natalie Mehra
Natalie Mehra is the Director of the Ontario Health Coalition. She has spent the last eight years building the health coalition into the largest and broadest public interest group on health care in Ontario. She has extensive experience as a community organizer dedicated to building and coordinating democratic citizens’ engagement in issues related to poverty and equality, human rights, social justice and health. Natalie has authored numerous published reports, essays and articles on various sectors and issues in our public health system, on non-profit governance, on poverty, disability, health and politics. She has spearheaded several national campaigns to protect the public health care system from privatization.
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Ricardo Acuna
Ricardo Acuna is the Executive Director of the Parkland Institute, a political and economic research institute at the University of Alberta. Prior to the Parkland Institute he worked as the project coordinator for Change For Children, an Edmonton based international development agency. He has a degree in Political Science and History and has over 18 years experience as a volunteer, staffer and consultant for various non-profit organizations.
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Conference Poster
Conference Booklet in PDF
