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Sponsored by Tierra Farm. Music by Grammy Award winning artist Aaron Dessner.

In this episode, Martin Ping and Rising Tide Capital cofounder Alfa Demmellash discuss the notion of economy and what we need to do to reimagine it so that it can serve us, our communities, and our children, and their children’s children.  Alfa  was born and raised in Ethiopia. She came to the United States at the age of 12 with a keen interest in poverty alleviation and conflict resolution. Alfa graduated cum laude from Harvard University in 2003, where she majored in Government. Named as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2015, Alfa co-founded Rising Tide Capital in 2004 to empower underserved urban entrepreneurs in northern New Jersey to start and grow successful businesses.  

2:15 Rising Tide Capital (RTC) works with entrepreneurs who are starting and growing businesses and local communities. They're predominantly entrepreneurs of color and women. 90% are people of color; 70% are women.

4:00 RTC works with about 1,000 entrepreneurs in New Jersey alone a year…many of them are mom and pop businesses.

4:50 How are we thinking about the economy and setting things up for our children and our children’s children and so on?

5:15 We are navigating uncharted territory with the pandemic and it has brought up eye-opening questions around what is an economy that can actually serve us as humans, and serve our community and our places.

7:10 The perspective of taking the long view has enabled us to ask the more profound questions about what does it mean to have an economy? What is the purpose of an economy and what does it facilitate besides the production of goods and services? 

11:30 Alfa talks about her early childhood and education in Ethiopia and connects the dots to how she came to the US and became who she is today.

14:30 Importance of centering children as a strategy for long-term change-making.

15:45 New Jersey pandemic relief efforts and Alfa’s involvement with First Lady of New Jersey Tammy Murphy in crisis relief and long-term solutioning.

17:00 Alfa on the murder of George Floyd and the call for any morally oriented human to look at that and recognize the call to action…the callousness with which human life is treated, spells not such great tidings for all of us and the kind of world we're building.   

19:30 We have to get out of the path we've been on and turn around to look at the fields upon fields of opportunity. We have to look at the role of localized more resilient micro-grids of human creativity...

21:00 Martin and Alfa’s shared experience with the 50th anniversary of Earthrise image from spac

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