Speaker
Marika Pfefferkorn
Co-founder and Solutions and Sustainability Officer of the Twin Cities Innovation Alliance and Executive Director of the Midwest Center for School Transformation
As an interdisciplinary and cross-sector thought leader and community advocate, Marika is a change agent working to transform systems and scale successes across education, technology, civic leadership and entrepreneurship. Ms. Pfefferkorn works along the continuum from community to theory to practice, integrating collective cultural wisdom and applying a restorative lens to upend punitive conditions in education, and to reimagine education through a liberatory lens. She has successfully co-led campaigns to end discriminatory suspension practices in Minnesota schools, to remove the presence of police in Minneapolis and St. Paul schools, to increase investment in indigenous restorative practices in education and community settings and is currently supporting In Equality in helping education and criminal justice systems provide quality and continuous education for justice involved youth during COVID-19. Marika has served on the boards of a number of local and national organization as well as MDE task forces and design teams.