Plenary Speakers

David Korten

David Korten is a visionary proponent of a planetary system of local living economies

Plenary Presentation: Navigating the Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community

Dr. Korten is the author of The Great Turning, When Corporations Rule the World, and The Post Corporate World. He is a co-founder and board chair of Positive Futures Network, which publishes Yes! A Journal of Positive Futures; founder and president of the People-Centered Development Forum; an associate of the International Forum on Globalization and serves on the board of Business Alliance for Local Living Economies. He works to help develop citizen groups working from a shared understanding of the deep problems afflicting our species and a common vision of unrealized possibilities.

Read more about David Korten by visiting www.davidkorten.org

Miriam Therese MacGillis

Dominican sister and co-founder of Genesis Farm, an Earth Literacy Center in northwestern New Jersey

Plenary Presentation: Perspectives on an Earth-based Economy: New Foundations, New Cosmology

Through her workshops and lectures (over 500 of them so far), she helps people to understand and embody this new understanding of what it means to be human. Miriam is the director of Genesis Farm, a center for education in earth stewardship, sponsored by the Dominican Congregation in affiliation with Global Education Associates.

Read more about Miriam Therese MacGillis by reading this interview

David Orr

Dr. David Orr is Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics at Oberlin College and the University of Vermont

Plenary Presentation: A Living Economy: Making It Happen

Orr is a scholar, teacher, writer, speaker, and entrepreneur whose work spans fields as diverse as environment and politics, environmental education, campus greening, green building, ecological design, and climate change. He is the author of five books and co-editor of three others. In 1996 he organized the effort to design the Adam Joseph Lewis Center, the first college building in the U.S. powered entirely by sunlight. It is a laboratory in sustainability, training some of the nation’s brightest and most dedicated students for careers in solving environmental problems.

Read more about David Orr by visiting www.oberlin.edu

Sister Paula Gonzalez, SC, PhD

Plenary Presentation: Toward a Healthy Planetary Future

A futurist and environmentalist, Paula Gonzalez has offered over 1700 talks, minicourses and retreats on Learning from Earth, Ecospirituality, Renewable Energy, Climate Change, Sustainable Futures, The Earth Charter and The Future of Religious Life. Since 1980 Paula has constructed two solar buildings modeled on nature’s cyclic processes, along with producing several book chapters, articles and audiotape and videotape programs.

Read more about Sister Paula Gonzalez on Wikipedia

Conference Weaver

Mimi Sinclair

Mimi Sinclair will serve as conference weaver and process facilitator. Mimi is a music therapist in private practice in Cincinnati. She performed with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra for 10 years and continues to perform as a violinist in the Cincinnati Ballet Orchestra. Mimi is currently a clinical trainer in affiliation with University of Dayton and Ohio University. She is a frequent presenter at state, regional and national conferences of the American Music Therapy Association and other organizations. Mimi also gathers the community for drum circles and Earth-centered rituals.