No Colloquium on 02/09. We will resume the regular series soon.
May17
Capitalism's Last Frontier: Entrepreneurship on the Navajo Nation
Heather Fleming, Change Labs
Monday, May 17, 2021
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3:30 p.m.–4:30 p.m. PT
Nearly one century ago, the Navajo Nation government was created in response to the discovery of major oil reserves on Navajoland, a 28,000 square mile landmass that spans Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. The newly founded government accepted agreements with multinational companies in the hopes of bringing jobs and economic opportunities to the community. Over the decades, it has become clear these agreements and the policies supporting extractive industries have caused irreparable harm to cultural practices, damaged the Colorado Plateau's air, water, and land, and hindered tribal members living on reservation land from developing businesses that support the local economic base. Drive through any community on the Navajo and Hopi nations today and you'll see the same contingent of businesses—a few fast-food joints, a gas station, a dollar store. Small, local, sustainable, and culturally cognizant businesses are largely absent as a direct effect of the tribal economic-development models initiated in the early 1920s to ensure successful extraction of natural resources held on tribal lands. Creating entrepreneurial pathways is a sincere route to developing a diverse and more sustainable economy, increase household incomes, and improve health outcomes for residents on tribal lands.
About Heather Fleming
Heather Fleming (Diné/Navajo) is the co-founder and Executive Director of Change Labs, an award-winning Navajo nonprofit supporting entrepreneurship and innovation on the Navajo Nation. Heather engages partners in and around the Navajo Nation to incubate, finance and train new and prospective Native American social entrepreneurs in an effort to diversify local economies and promote innovation. The inspiration for Heather’s work to seed Native American social entrepreneurship was inspired by her upbringing in rural New Mexico and her work with Catapult Design, a company she co-founded in San Francisco and led for 10 years. Catapult is a product and service design firm with expertise in human-centered design for marginalized communities. Prior to starting Catapult, Heather was an Adjunct Lecturer at Stanford University and California Academy of the Arts, and worked as a design and innovation consultant in Silicon Valley, designing products and services for a diverse range of corporate clients. Heather was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and a Social Innovation Fellow for her work with Engineers without Borders and Catapult Design and previously chaired the ASME Engineering for Global Development Committee focused on developing engineering standards for products deployed in developing nations.
Audience:
In case you're interested
Upcoming events
No Colloquium. We will resume the regular series on the following Monday.
Feb16
