NYCW 26- Common Infrastructure for Collective Action: Growing Regional Food Systems Resilience
As a continuum of our "Common Infrastructure for Collective Action" series, this one-day interactive event will convene a curated group of technologists, funders, practitioners, systems designers, and community leaders during Climate Week. Through participatory workshops and facilitated dialogue we will showcase inspiring initiatives and explore emerging pathways to resourcing and co-developing common infrastructures that ensures regional food systems can adapt, replicate, and endure.
Together we will:
Advance Shared Learning: Surface practical insights and common patterns across regional food systems from the U.S. and around the world.
Strengthen Relationships: Connect inter-disciplinary & cross-sectoral ecosystem leaders working to build more resilient regional food systems.
Design Common Infrastructure: Identify opportunities for shared social, technical, and financial infrastructure that strengthens coordination, adaptation, and replication across regions.
Catalyze Ongoing Collaboration: Generate reusable resources, new partnerships, and momentum that continue beyond Climate Week through the OFC U.S. Food Systems Infrastructure Lab and related initiatives.
Program Schedule:
9:00 am: Coffee, pastries & connect
9:30 am: Opening Context
9:45 am: Workshop 1: Learning Across Regions: What Regional Food Systems Can Teach Us About Infrastructure ( Panel + participant discussion)
Nanyelis Chapman, Agricultural Platform Collective
Teia Evans, Cooperative Food Empowerment Directive
Megan Larmer, Glynwood Center for Regional Food & Farming
Mark Blevins, North Carolina A&T State University Cooperative Extension
Mellissa Craig, Federation of Southern Cooperatives
10:45 am: Break
11:00 am: Workshop 2: Financing Flourishing: Contextual Capital for Regional Food Systems (Fishbowl + Q & A)
Kat Taylor, TomKat Foundation
Stephen Hohenrieder, Grounded Capital
Erica Hellen, Foodshed Capital
Olivia Watkins, Black Farmer Fund
Delila Boclin, Locus Impact
12:00 pm: Light Lunch
12:30 pm: Workshop 3: Building Common Infrastructure: Growing the Participatory Commons for Collective Action (Topical roundtables + interactive mapping & design)
Deepa Lounsbury & Megan Holcomb, LabStart
Eva Gladek, Metabolic
Liza Lamana, American Sustainable Business Network
Dorn Cox, Open TEAM
Sara Blenkhorn, Buckminster Fuller Institute
Sarah Salem, Hudson Valley Food Systems Coalition
Sushant Shrestha, Contextual Capital Labs
Brian Ratcliffe, Plant Baby Plant
1:30 pm: Collective Harvest
Join us for individual sessions or stay the whole day! We look forward to weaving the incredible existing work across food systems, while addressing the gaps and advancing cooperative infrastructures as a foundation for climate adaptation and regional resilience.
Hosted in partnership with Agricultural Platform Collective and 11th Hour Project.