NYC 2025
MISSOULA, MT — September 2025
The Biomimicry Institute is advancing its bold 10-year strategy to accelerate a Nature Positive, inclusive, and regenerative future by announcing a major new digital initiative at Climate Week NYC 2025. With the launch of AskNature Chat (Beta), a new AI-powered tool designed to make the vast world of biological knowledge accessible and contextualized for people of all ages, education levels, professions, and languages to support the practice and study of biomimicry.
As part of the Institute’s long-term commitment to transforming human systems through nature-inspired solutions, AskNature Chat expands on the 10-year strategic plan launched at Climate Week in 2024. That strategy addresses three global challenges: climate change and biodiversity loss, the disconnection between people and nature, and the unsustainable take-make-waste culture. Over the next decade, the Institute is focused on enabling systems-level change in how we build, make, grow, and connect by scaling nature-inspired solutions across sectors.
Amanda Sturgeon, CEO of The Biomimicry Institute, shares her excitement about the launch: “Our ten-year strategy is rooted in the recognition that nature isn’t just a resource; nature is the teacher. With AskNature Chat, we’re opening biological strategies and lessons to the public, making Nature’s wisdom easier to tap into than ever before. Whether you’re envisioning a new material, reshaping a city, or designing a product, you now have nature’s genius woven into your design process.”
Designed to spotlight nature’s genius as a guide for regenerative, climate-resilient innovation, AskNature Chat is an AI-powered, always-on naturalist––part poetic field guide, part scientific translator––trained to reveal how living organisms solve problems and how we can do the same. Designed for designers, educators, engineers, policymakers, and the nature curious, the tool offers actionable, awe-inspiring insights drawn from nature’s playbook. It works by combining a powerful AI language model with a deep repository of curated biological strategies and authorized access to ecological writings of Janine Benyus, co-founder of the Biomimicry Institute, unavailable in any other AI tool. It is also guided by an ethical grounding that emphasizes humanity’s responsibility to work in harmony with the rest of nature, and it provides links to original source material to give credit to the individuals and cultures who first revealed the information..
The new chat feature expands the reach and impact of AskNature.org, the world’s largest open-access database of biological strategies for innovation. It is also complemented by the AskNature Learning platform, which offers immersive biomimicry education through live expert sessions, case studies, and hands-on learning.
Climate Week NYC 2025 Events
As part of its Climate Week presence, the Biomimicry Institute will host three public events in New York City:
- September 22, 2025 at 1:30 PM
Grounding Climate Week: A Biomimicry Equinox Gathering
A nature-anchored experience in Central Park to ground the week in ecological presence. - September 24, 2025 at 6:00 PM
AskNature: Solutions from Life | NY Climate Week Event
Featuring visionary talks, interactive exhibits, and conversations about the power of biomimicry in shaping a better future. - September 25, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Nature-Inspired Solutions: 2025 Cohort Startups Pitches & Reception
A showcase of the newest 2025 Ray of Hope Accelerator cohort, presenting scalable, nature-inspired solutions from around the globe.
More information and registration details can be found at biomimicry.org/climate-week.
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About the Biomimicry Institute
The Biomimicry Institute is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization founded in 2005 that connects individuals to enable a nature-positive, inclusive and regenerative world inspired and guided by nature’s genius. The Institute provides tools like AskNature.org, the largest free database of biological strategies for sustainable innovation, and the AskNature Hive, a global collaboration hub for nature-inspired problem solvers. The Institute runs the Ray of Hope Accelerator to support startups using nature’s strategies to tackle major environmental challenges, Nature of Fashion, a circular economy initiative turning textile waste into biocompatible raw materials, as well as the inaugural Co-Lab, an action-focused collaboration bringing together leading industry innovators, design practitioners, and implementation experts to accelerate the shift toward a nature-positive built environment.
Learn more at www.biomimicry.org.
Media Contact:
Director of Communications
media@biomimicry.org
