Design Economics Podcast with Vinny Tafuro cover art

Design Economics Podcast with Vinny Tafuro

Design Economics Podcast with Vinny Tafuro

By: Institute for Economic Evolution Inc.
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Join us to discover how design thinking can revolutionize economics for the 21st century. Learn about the Institute for Economic Evolution's three tenets of design economics and meet the pioneering thinkers who are shaping this approach. From challenging economic orthodoxy to creating human-centered solutions, explore how design economics is evolving economics to better serve humanity and the environment.Copyright 2025 © All rights reserved. Science Social Sciences
Episodes
  • EP17 Masami Sato: Woven In; Embedding Impact by Design
    May 26 2026

    Join host Vinny Tafuro for a conversation with Masami Sato, founder and CEO of B1G1, a Singapore-based social enterprise and certified B Corp that has generated over 395 million giving impacts across more than 50 countries. Masami traces her path from a shy, introverted young woman who left Japan at 20 with little money and no English, to food entrepreneur, to living alongside farmers in rural communities, and explains how each of those experiences led to a single transformative insight: that lasting change isn't built through grand gestures or deferred philanthropy, but through small, intentional actions woven into the everyday fabric of business. From the original "buy one, give one" spark to the fully evolved B1G1 movement, this episode explores what it looks like to design giving into a business from the ground up, and why that changes everything.

    Links Referenced

    • B1G1
    • Masami Sato
    • One Percent for the Planet

    ★ Support this podcast ★

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    58 mins
  • EP 16 Miren Oca: Exit While They Slept; Employee Ownership & the Perpetual Trust
    May 4 2026

    Join host Vinny Tafuro for a conversation with Miren Oca, founder and CEO of Ocaquatics Swim School, who built a Miami swim instruction institution over 32 years before transferring 100% of it to her employees through a perpetual Employee Ownership Trust on the company's thirtieth anniversary. Miren walks through why she walked away from private equity, how the EOT compares to ESOPs and worker cooperatives, what the transaction actually looks like, and how the trust's structure protects the company's mission and keeps wealth in the community it serves. This episode also explores the Own It culture Miren built over three decades, the role of financial literacy in preparing employees for co-ownership, and how Ripples of Impact extends the company's purpose beyond the pool.

    Links Referenced

    • Miren Oca
    • Ocaquatics Swim School
    • Ripples of Impact
    • Purpose Trust Ownership Network (PTON)
    • One Percent for the Planet
    • Florida for Good
    • B1G1

    Books Referenced

    • Delivering Happiness (Tony Hsieh)
    • The Man Who Broke Capitalism (David Gelles)

    Purchase books from our Bookstore.org bookstore

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    59 mins
  • EP 15 Helena Norberg-Hodge: Local Futures; Happiness as a Cure
    Apr 13 2026

    Join host Vinny Tafuro for a conversation with Helena Norberg-Hodge, founder of Local Futures and pioneer of the new economy movement. Helena traces the economic forces that transformed Ladakh, a self-sufficient Himalayan culture untouched by the global economy until the 1970s, and what that experience revealed about the relationship between economic design and human happiness. From the destruction of local economies by deliberate policy to the structural case for localization, this episode explores what GDP cannot measure and what it will take to build the public understanding that real change requires.

    • Local Futures Website
    • The Economics of Happiness (Film)
    • Right Livelihood Award
    • Via Campesina

    ★ Support this podcast ★

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    1 hr and 4 mins
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