“From nature’s blueprints, these companies are commercializing what our world so urgently needs—products that solve problems without creating new ones… ” Learn more about this year’s Ray of Hope Prize® First Place Recipient GreenPod Labs, an India-based agricultural biotechnology startup focused on tackling food loss problems in developing countries, and Second Place Runner-Up Fusion Bionic, a company that has engineered a nature-inspired solution for surface textures to eliminate the need for harmful chemicals.
A decade ago I felt lost, confused, and anxious. I had just learned about climate change and was shocked the state of our planet wasn’t introduced to me sooner. Once my privilege bubble popped and I realized I was actively contributing to the problem, I immediately began changing my habits. But the more I learned, the more wicked the global quandary became. I marched for climate action, was trained by Al Gore and his team through the Climate Reality Leadership Corps, and joined a full-service public relations firm focused on sustainability. Still, I found myself paralyzed and distraught to find my place in the agency of change.
Bring biomimicry education into your community, further your own learning through professional development, and hear from practitioners in the new biographies series.
Taken as a whole, you will make it possible for us to meet, and hopefully exceed, our goals. You’ll be helping to solve humanity’s biggest challenges with nature’s proven solutions. And you’ll get us all one step closer to securing a sustainable future for the next generation.
For every dollar you give today through the end of the year, the Kendeda Fund has generously offered to match your donation. Thank you for supporting our shared mission.
To help formal and non-formal educators learn from each other and pass on creative and effective ways to teach biomimicry, the Sharing Stories Project was born. The project’s interviewers reached out to educators across the globe who are using biomimicry to engage young people in solution-based thinking and inspire them to look at the natural world from a new perspective.
The emergence of 17-year cicadas in the summer of 2021 revived interest in a paper Janet Barber co-authored about the role of Benjamin Banneker — a free African-American in 18th-century Maryland — as one of the first naturalists to record scientific information and observations of the insects.
Systemic, nature-inspired solutions exist to lessen, and ultimately reverse humanity’s negative impact on the planet, regenerating ecosystems and revitalizing human systems. We hope these case studies illuminate some of these human-caused problems, and show that if we turn to nature for solutions we may just come up with better performing alternatives.
Calling all middle and high school educators! The Youth Design Challenge opened registration today for the 2021-22 program cycle, and you can gain access to engaging instructional models aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). If you’re new to us, the Youth Design Challenge serves as a bridge from core concepts to advanced project-focused learning for students. We equip learners with the tools they need to solve the world’s pressing problems using the teachings of nature.
Over the course of the 10-week Ray of Hope Prize program, our mentors and advisors help the top nature-inspired startups in the world describe their technology and the problem it addresses. Honing this message is an essential step to gaining traction in a crowded and noisy marketplace. Here’s a taste of the minute pitches from our 2020 and 2021 cohorts.
Our world feels very different right now, but this difference can provide us with a wonderful opportunity: an opportunity to teach ourselves and our students how to adapt to and learn from everything that nature has to offer. We hope to offer educators and parents an introductory guide on how to bring nature into the classroom, or more appropriately, take the classroom outside.
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