Plenary Speaker - Greg Watson
Greg Watson is Director of Policy and Systems Design at the Schumacher Center for a New Economics. Greg has spent over 40 years learning to understand systems thinking as inspired by Buckminster Fuller and to apply that understanding to achieve a just and sustainable world. His work currently focuses on community food systems and an initiative to improve global systems literacy. Greg has worked in many areas related to natural resources and education, including organic and urban farming, aquaculture, wind-energy technology, passive solar design, and climate change policy. Greg served as the 19th Commissioner of Agriculture in Massachusetts and as Assistant Secretary in the Massachusetts Executive Office of Economic Affairs. He served as the first Education Director (and later Executive Director) of the New Alchemy Institute on Cape Cod, the Executive Director of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, and the first Executive Director of the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust (now the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center). Greg was also part of President-elect Barack Obama’s U.S. Department of Energy transition team. In 2015 he founded the Cuba-U.S. Agroecology Network (CUSAN), which links small farmers and sustainable farm organizations in both countries to share information and provide mutual support. Along with Elizabeth Thompson (former executive director of the Buckminster Fuller Institute) Greg leads Fuller’s World Game Workshop, a global simulation tool designed to help players discover the options for creating a world that works for 100% of humanity without compromising Earth’s ecological integrity.
Greg Watson is Director of Policy and Systems Design at the Schumacher Center for a New Economics. Greg has spent over 40 years learning to understand systems thinking as inspired by Buckminster Fuller and to apply that understanding to achieve a just and sustainable world. His work currently focuses on community food systems and an initiative to improve global systems literacy. Greg has worked in many areas related to natural resources and education, including organic and urban farming, aquaculture, wind-energy technology, passive solar design, and climate change policy. Greg served as the 19th Commissioner of Agriculture in Massachusetts and as Assistant Secretary in the Massachusetts Executive Office of Economic Affairs. He served as the first Education Director (and later Executive Director) of the New Alchemy Institute on Cape Cod, the Executive Director of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, and the first Executive Director of the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust (now the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center). Greg was also part of President-elect Barack Obama’s U.S. Department of Energy transition team. In 2015 he founded the Cuba-U.S. Agroecology Network (CUSAN), which links small farmers and sustainable farm organizations in both countries to share information and provide mutual support. Along with Elizabeth Thompson (former executive director of the Buckminster Fuller Institute) Greg leads Fuller’s World Game Workshop, a global simulation tool designed to help players discover the options for creating a world that works for 100% of humanity without compromising Earth’s ecological integrity.
Keynote Speaker - Dr. Lesley Evans Ogden
Lesley Evans Ogden is a freelance science journalist based in the suburbs of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Fascinated by the natural world and how it works, she writes about living things but also long dead ones like dinosaurs and mummies or non-living things like tornadoes and climate. She especially likes writing about quirky animal behaviour, ecology, conservation, environmental health, and the challenges of freelancing. She is fascinated by the intersection of science, human rights, and policy and is interested in projects in all media -- print, web, audio, video, TV. Lesley earned an MSc at York University, a PhD at Simon Fraser University and a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of British Columbia. She later completed Science Communications and Investigative Journalism programs at the Banff Centre in Alberta. Her clients include Natural History, BioScience, New Scientist, Scientific American, Mosaic, Storyboard, BBC Earth, BBC Future, Science, Nature, CBC, Undark, Science News, Discover, Audubon, National Geographic & others. You can read more about her work on her website here.
Lesley Evans Ogden is a freelance science journalist based in the suburbs of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Fascinated by the natural world and how it works, she writes about living things but also long dead ones like dinosaurs and mummies or non-living things like tornadoes and climate. She especially likes writing about quirky animal behaviour, ecology, conservation, environmental health, and the challenges of freelancing. She is fascinated by the intersection of science, human rights, and policy and is interested in projects in all media -- print, web, audio, video, TV. Lesley earned an MSc at York University, a PhD at Simon Fraser University and a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of British Columbia. She later completed Science Communications and Investigative Journalism programs at the Banff Centre in Alberta. Her clients include Natural History, BioScience, New Scientist, Scientific American, Mosaic, Storyboard, BBC Earth, BBC Future, Science, Nature, CBC, Undark, Science News, Discover, Audubon, National Geographic & others. You can read more about her work on her website here.