Rhode Island School of Design Presents 'Shared Voices: The 2014 RISD Presidential Speaker Series'

Rhode Island School of Design presents its third season of Shared Voices: The RISD Presidential Speaker Series, with special guest speaker Robin Chase on Tuesday, April 22 at 7:30PM in the RISD Auditorium [Canal Walkway at Market Square, Providence]. A transportation entrepreneur, Chase is the founder of Zipcar, Buzzcar and Veniam Works. She will talk about how we can build a sustainable new economy through collaboration and sharing. This event is open to the public free of charge, but advance registration is necessary and available on a first-come, first-served basis at sharedvoices.risd.edu.

Shared Voices offers a forum for welcoming some of the most expansive thinkers of our time to RISD. Each shares our community’s commitment to the exchange of ideas and to the potential for innovation when artists, designers, activists, technologists, social scientists and other scholars come together to learn from one another. Faculty co-hosts welcome each speaker to campus and facilitate interaction with students prior to the main event – a public conversation in the evening.

RISD Interim President Rosanne Somerson worked with faculty members to select Chase as the featured guest speaker for the 2014 series. This conversation is co-hosted by Associate Professor of Industrial Design Andrew Law and Assistant Professor of History, Philosophy + Social Sciences Jennifer Prewitt-Freilino.

Chase’s presentation, Together, Building the Sustainable New Economy, will focus on transitioning from the old Industrial Economy to the new Collaboration Economy, which is changing how we work, how we build businesses, and how we use resources. She will explore the future of this economy, with companies partnering with individuals to deliver local, customized, specialized goods – and how, as we confront a challenging future, we build a path towards community and abundance.

“RISD is a place where critical makers are inventing the future every day,” notes RISD Interim President Rosanne Somerson. “New tools and methods are enabling bold, inventive ways of working, and systems of production and distribution that reshape our relationship to the world and to ‘ownership’. We are thrilled to welcome Robin Chase to campus, to learn more about her leadership role in creating a sustainable new economy, and to hear her thoughts on our emerging culture of cooperation and sharing.”

More information about the speaker and information on registration can be found at sharedvoices.risd.edu.

Previous Shared Voices speakers include bioethicist Juan Enriquez; particle physicist Lisa Randall; co-founder of Wired magazine Kevin Kelly; award-winning MIT professor and computer scientist Hal Abelson; and psychologist, behavioral economist and Duke University professor Dan Ariely.

You can view their talks online at sharedvoices.risd.edu.