As is evident from the name of my website, my name is Andy Posner. I was born on November 14th, 1984, which makes me 25 years old. I hold a Masters Degree in Environmental Studies at Brown University and I received my B.A. in Spanish Language and Culture from California State University, Northridge, located in my hometown of Los Angeles. I have done several exciting, adventurous things in my young life. I spent my Junior year in college studying in Granada, Spain. Two months after I returned home, I embarked on a cross-country bike trip. I rode from Newport News, Virginia, to San Francisco, California, with 60 pounds of gear and two people that I met online and who during the course of the trip became two of my closest friends. In all, I covered 3,600 miles of terrain. Beyond that, I have spent three works working in Cairo, Egpyt, building solar water heaters with Solar CITIES, an ngo-founded by my friend T.H. Culhane, and I recently did a three week training program in Bangladesh with Grameen Bank.
I am currently the co-founder and Executive Director of The Capital Good Fund, a non-profit microlender based in Providence, Rhode Island with the mission of creating a poverty-free, inclusive green economy. We provide loans, workshops and consulting services to individuals unable to access capital through traditional sources. These products and services go to entrepreneurs seeking capital for income-generating activities and to immigrants interested in applying for U.S. citizenship. We are also developing a green credit builder loan program.
My interests include, but are not limited to, cycling, filmmaking, sustainable design, alternative energy, reading, writing, tennis, gardening, cooking, philosophy, poetry, biology (evolution in particular), physics, biography and history. The great thinkers that have most inspired me in life are Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Henry David Thoreau, Ayn Rand, Percy Shelley, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William McDonough, Paul Hawken and Muhammad Yunus. What I value most in life is independence of thought, the pursuit of knowledge and truth, and adherence to the principles that one knows to be true in one’s heart of hearts.
My goal is no more or less than to work towards an economy/society that, at once, alleviates poverty, provides meaningful, sustainable and just jobs, and restores the environment. Paul Hawken has called this a restorative economy, and I am fine with that name.
Andy Posner
http://www.andyposner.org
“One feels the insignificance of the individual, and it makes one feel happy.—Albert Einstein
Click here to download a PDF of my complete thesis. Questions and comments are much appreciated!
My masters thesis in Environmental Studies at Brown University looks at how microfinance--the provision of small…
Micro-credit has undoubtedly been a runaway success in developing countries as a tool of both poverty alleviation and economic development. To date, some 100 million people have been reached by micro-loans, and Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank…
It is late and my mind should be drifting through the colorful abyss of deep sleep, yet instead i find that tonight sleep will not come. I am like a hungry flower who dreams of bees so ardently that all…