Midtown Wednesdays

Midtown Wednesdays: Building Sustainable Regional Food Networks

Date: Wednesday, May 10
Time: 5:00 P.M. - 6:45 P.M.
Place: Myers University, Chester Campus
3921 Chester Avenue, Cleveland, OH
Map Link

In regions with flat, networked economies collaborations can be built quickly to move ahead. How residents in Northeast Ohio collaborate across social and regional boundaries to share resources and respond to change will determine the future of our region.

Food security is one of the major issues facing residents in our region and around the world in this century. Learn more about why our current food system is not sustainable and what you can do to help promote a secure and sustainable food production system in Northeast Ohio.

We're moving forward in Midtown! Join us to explore new possibilties and build your connections.

Leader: Melvin Hendrix, President, PermaCycle Organics

Learn more about organic food production. Visit the Alternative Farming Systems Information Center, sponsored by the USDA here.

Read about the Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems, University of California whose mission is to research, develop, and advance sustainable food and agricultural systems that are environmentally sound, economically viable, socially responsible, nonexploitative, and that serve as a foundation for future generations. Learn more.

Green Roofs are helping to make up for a recent loss of 676 acres of park land in Richmond Canada. Councilman, Harold Steves says, “We have to start designing cities that contain the park space and the food producing space within the area where people live, simply because transportation costs and the lack of a rural food supply are going to be pretty detrimental to cities.” Read more here.

Systems thinker, Marcin Jakubowski, PhD, is building an Operational Model for a Replicable, Regenerative Development Social Enterprise. "The two main projects that we are engaging now, in preparation of deploying our first new enterprise learning community, " says Marcin, "is the compressed earth block machine (CEB) and the modern steam engine for combined heat, power, and water distillation." Read about about Source Open Ecology, Inc. here. You can download the 2006 Activity Report here and the Future Work Report for 2007 here.

Read the I-Open Whitepaper, written by Ed Morrison, Director, I-Open, here.

Read the Midtown Innovation Zone 1st Quarter Report. Go.

Check out the Midtown Innovation Zone wiki we're building here.

Join us for Midtown Mornings. Share coffee and bagels, make new connections and explore business opportunities. Join us to network with entrepreneurs building the Midtown Innovation Zone. Work on transformative initiatives. Download the PDF here.

Date: Friday, May 12
Time: 7:30-8:30 A.M.
Place: Nead Brand Partners
3635 Perkins Avenue, Suite 6a
Map Link

Coming Up: Wednesday, May 17: Non-Profit Innovations in Networking
Time: 5:00 P.M. - 6:45 P.M.
Place: Myers University, Chester Campus
Cleveland, OH 4411

Questions? Contact:
Betsey Merkel, I-Open
Tel. 216-246-2447

posted by Unknown @ 5/06/2006