John Restakis

John Restakis is former Executive Director of the BC Co-operative Association in Vancouver, a position he held since 1998. His professional background includes community organizing, adult and popular education, and co-op development. In addition to his role within the co-op movement of BC, he does consulting work on international co-op development projects, researches and teaches on co-operative economies and the social economy, and lectures widely on the subject of globalization, regional development and alternative economics. John is a founding member of the Advisory Committee for the MA Program in Community Development at the University of Victoria and was co -founder and Co-ordinator of the Bologna Summer Program for Co-operative Studies at the University of Bologna. He has developed and taught courses on co-operatives and sustainability for BCIT (BC Institute of Technology), Simon Fraser University, and the University of Victoria and is currently designing a program on co-operative models for rural economic development for Selkirk College in BC. In 2014 Restakis lead research on Social Infrastructure and Institutional Innovation as part of Ecuador’s Free/Libre Open Knowledge Society Project (FLOK), to transition Ecuador to a Social Knowledge and Commons-based Economy. The national project was housed at IAEN (National Institute for Advanced Studies) and had the support of the Ministry of Human Resource and Knowledge in Ecuador.   Restakis earned his BA at the University of Toronto with a Major degree in East Asian Studies and specialist studies in Sanskrit and Classical Greek. He holds a Masters Degree in Philosophy of Religion.Books:Seeds of Transition, Athabasca University, 2014The Great Train Robbery, Tax Justice & Civil Economy, Between the Lines, 2013Humanizing the Economy – Co-operatives in the Age of Capital, New Society Publishers, 2010The Co-op Alternative: Civil Society and the Future of Public Services Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 2001Storylines: Oral Histories for Literacy Ontario Ministry of Education, 1987restakis AT gmail.com 0-999-252-433 (cel)