Mitty Owens on Cuba, Culture and Character Contra Capitalismo

Millard "Mitty" Owens is the Co-Director of The People's Solar Energy Fund. Mitty's thirty year public service career includes community development finance, philanthropy, arts and social change, and organizational and leadership development. Career highlights include the Ford Foundation (program officer in economic development and program related investments), the New York City Office of Financial Empowerment (Senior Deputy), NYU’s Research Center for Leadership in Action (associate director and public policy adjunct), and Self-Help, the pioneering community development financial institution. The past three years have involved a special focus on impact investing aimed at exploring the opportunities and challenges in pairing social justice and finance. Mitty has lived in Zimbabwe and traveled extensively in the Global South. He has served on various economic and social justice boards (including the NC Minority Credit Union Support Center, Global Exchange, Grassroots Leadership, and the Lower East Side Peoples Federal Credit Union) and various arts boards stemming from his interest in art and social change, for which he earned a WK Kellogg National Leadership Fellowship. Mitty is a graduate of Yale University and holds an M.S. in Community Economic Development. He is a proud son of Brooklyn, and a proud and active single dad.

Mitty’s Slides

A note from Lev:

I am a high school teacher of history and economics at a public high school in NYC, and began the podcast to help demystify economics for teachers.  The podcast is now within the top 2.5% of podcasts worldwide in terms of listeners (per Listen Notes) and individual episodes are frequently listed by The Syllabus (the-syllabus.com) as among the 10 best political economy podcasts of a particular week.  The podcast is reaching thousands of listeners each month.  

The podcast seeks to provide a substantive alternative to mainstream economics media; to communicate information and ideas that contribute to equitable and peaceful solutions to political and economic issues; and to improve the teaching of high school and university political economy.  

Best,

Lev