Patricio Belloy

Patricio earned a Master of Arts in Global Studies from Leipzig University (Germany) and Wroclaw University (Poland), and is currently a doctoral student at UMass Boston's PhD program in Public Policy. He is an adjunct lecturer at the Institute of Economics and Associate Researcher at the Transdisciplinary Center for Environmental Studies, both at Austral University of Chile. His work and research interests intend to close the gap between the needs of underserved communities in terms of renewable energy services and the related capabilities that can be locally developed through formal and non-formal education

How does your current work relate to economic democracy:
Economic democracy is something we promote in the Los Rios region, in southern Chile, from an anchor institution position in the territory. As a team inside the university, more than competing for international rankings, our goal is to understand the impact that we have with local communities, with whom we engage with as partners, and the changes this brings in the relationship of the university with them. We try not to act as experts, but as partners, and is in this relationship where economic democracy is coherent with our philosophy of  human centric development, where the ever growing levels of self determination and collective intelligence in the territory are the pillars of a different type of development. A productive development, local and that looks with equality the several stakeholders of the community. Currently we are making an emphasis in people's access to electricity, and the democratization of the means of electricity production, alone with the opportunities that this brings for the youth. We want for the solutions of energy production, to be in the hands of the people, and not only in the hands of outside corporations, or of the government’s “du jour”  generosity.