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Majora Carter is an internationally renowned urban revitalization strategy consultant, real estate developer, and Peabody Award winning broadcaster. She is responsible for the creation & successful implementation of numerous green-infrastructure projects, policies, and job training & placement systems.
After establishing several local and national organizations to carry on that work, she built on this foundation with innovative ventures and insights into urban economic developments designed to help move Americans out of poverty.
Her long list of awards and honorary degrees include accolades from groups as diverse as Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, John Podesta’s Center for American Progress, Goldman Sachs, as well as a MacArthur “genius” Fellowship. Her 2006 TED talk was one of the first 6 videos to launch their groundbreaking website.
Majora embodies the American Dream. She has continually set new standards of excellence with projects in her South Bronx community, while expanding her reach nationally and internationally. Her philanthropic pursuits and business interests have all pointed toward greater self-esteem and economic potential for low-income people everywhere.
Follow her on twitter at @MajoraCarter and on facebook.com/majoracarter
Additional Tech Related info:
Majora is Co-Founder & CEO of StartUpBox.SouthBronx (sbsq.org). This enterprise-generating project is seeding the ground for community participation in accessible and lucrative economic growth trends for the 21st century. In 2012, Majora was one of BusinessInsider.com’s ‘Silicon Alley 100’, a strong supporter and participant of DigitalUndivided.com / #Focus100, and one of Goldman-Sachs ‘100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs’. She will be speaking at NYC’s very own Etsy.com’s #HelloEtsy conference, May 23, 2013.
In 2007, while at the helm of Sustainable South Bronx, Majora Carter brought MIT’s first ever Mobile Fab-Lab (digital fabrication laboratory) to the South Bronx where it served as an early iteration of the “Maker-Space” found elsewhere today. It drew residents and visitors together in the South Bronx for creative collaborations. In July 2013, Majora will be a featured speaker at M.I.T. for Platform.org as she continues to drive the financial currents seeking out diversity & innovation, into the communities left out of previous economic booms.
Media inquiries please contact James Chase
Beginning in the Bronx
In the late 1990′s Majora Carter stepped into the world of urban planning, by simultaneously re-directing a Giuliani-era plan for additional waste handling in the South Bronx, and shifting city-wide policy towards positive green development in environmentally challenged neighborhoods.
After she wrote a successful $1.25M Federal Transportation planning grant proposal in 2000, the South Bronx was at the forefront of community driven Greenway design. An 11 mile network of bike and pedestrian paths to connect neighborhoods to the river front and each other, with cost-effective & low impact storm water management capacity, local entrepreneurship opportunities, and active-living features to improve public health and reduce traffic congestion – was eventually approved by NY City and has since gone on to attract roughly $50M in Federal, State, City, and private funds.
At the same time, Majora spearheaded Hunts Point Riverside Park, the South Bronx’s first waterfront park in over 60 years. In the process, Majora amassed a corss-sector collection of partners – including policy makers, business leaders, and community members – all of whom were instrumental in making these pioneering projects happen.
While the Hunts Point Riverside Park project, now completed and serving the neighborhood, is an important and very visible accomplishment, it is only a part of a larger strategy to move under-performing communities into healthy and productive economic conditions.
Sustainable South Bronx
In 2001, Majora Carter founded a vanguard non-profit corp: Sustainable South Bronx (SSBx.org) – serving as Executive Director until mid 2008. With a focus on project goals over ideology, Majora Carter built one of the nation’s first and most successful urban green-collar job training and placement systems: Bronx Environmental Stewardship Training (BEST) program, in 2003. This project was one of the policy inspirations for much for the Green-Jobs movement to come. Majora went to co-found Green For All, and SSBx led the S.W.I.M coalition to pass NYC’s $4.50/square foot Green Roof Tax Abatement – which fueled demand for the accessible jobs her organization trained people for.
Unlocking the Economic Potential in Communities
Energy consumption, public health, storm-water management, prison recidivism, school/student performance, social services, stagnant property values, climate change adaptation, and income disparities – all these “problems”are tied to an local environmental aspects. The communities of interest that make up a village, a city, a region, are all connected by the people and dollars circulating through them, and Majora Carter Group helps open the doors to solutions that benefit shared concerns with the same dollars.
Money spent on public health & incarceration costs, imported dirty-energy, and conventional waste disposal, creates one-way movements of capital out of local economies. By contrast, robust distributed investments common-sense solutions can pay for themselves through more effective economic multipliers. We help create new tax-bases, while removing obligations from the tax ledgers.
MCG is an inspirational and practical tool to open opportunities for people.
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