Biomimicry Global Design Challenge’s Ray of Hope prize

Bioneers proudly hosted the announcement and awarding of Biomimicry Global Design Challenge’s inaugural $100,000 Ray of Hope Prize, a partnership between the Biomimicry Institute and the Ray C. Anderson Foundation to stimulate innovative biomimetic solutions to humanity’s greatest challenges. The 2016 Challenge focused on Biomimetic solutions to problems in our global food system.

The prize was announced by John Lanier, Executive Director of the Ray C. Anderson Foundation.

This speech was given at the 2016 National Bioneers Conference.

Standing Rock Update | Bioneers 2016

Standing Rock Update with Kandi Mossett, Dallas Goldtooth and Tara Houska.

This speech was given at the 2016 National Bioneers Conference.

Since 1990, Bioneers has acted as a fertile hub of social and scientific innovators with practical and visionary solutions for the world’s most pressing environmental and social challenges.

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Xiuhtezcatl Martinez – Intergenerational Movement | Bioneers 2016 Short Clips Series

Watch his full talk here.

“Revolution is on the horizon, and youth are rising with the oceans to lead the movements that will shape our future”, says Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, a 16-year old Indigenous rapper, environmental activist (since age 6!) and the newest board member of Bioneers. He’s the award-winning Youth Director or Earth Guardians, a rapidly growing international organization of young activists, artists and musicians committed to protecting water, air, land and atmosphere. He organized many rallies, actions, demonstrations and events. He travels globally to speak about environmental and Indigenous issues, including at the United Nations with Robert Redford. He brings alive the unparalleled intergenerational movements emerging to save our planet, as youth globally join hearts and hands against some of the world’s most powerful industries to take a stand for the future and build resilient communities.

This speech was given at the 2016 National Bioneers Conference.

Bill McKibben – Standing Rock | Bioneers 2016 Short Clips Series

Watch the full talk here.

The most influential climate activist of our era, Bill McKibben, a founder of the extraordinarily effective 350.org grassroots campaign, describes the immense groundswell of global citizen engagement rising to challenge the “dirty” energy industry. Find out where we are scientifically and politically in the transformation to end our reliance on fossil fuels while lighting the pathways toward a clean-energy future.

This speech was given at the 2016 National Bioneers Conference.

Xiuhtezcatl Martinez – That Is What I Am Fighting For | Bioneers 2016 Short Clips Series

Watch his full talk here.

“Revolution is on the horizon, and youth are rising with the oceans to lead the movements that will shape our future”, says Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, a 16-year old Indigenous rapper, environmental activist (since age 6!) and the newest board member of Bioneers. He’s the award-winning Youth Director or Earth Guardians, a rapidly growing international organization of young activists, artists and musicians committed to protecting water, air, land and atmosphere. He organized many rallies, actions, demonstrations and events. He travels globally to speak about environmental and Indigenous issues, including at the United Nations with Robert Redford. He brings alive the unparalleled intergenerational movements emerging to save our planet, as youth globally join hearts and hands against some of the world’s most powerful industries to take a stand for the future and build resilient communities.

This speech was given at the 2016 National Bioneers Conference.

Bill McKibben – Give All That You’ve Got | Bioneers 2016 Short Clips Series

Watch the full talk here.

The most influential climate activist of our era, Bill McKibben, a founder of the extraordinarily effective 350.org grassroots campaign, describes the immense groundswell of global citizen engagement rising to challenge the “dirty” energy industry. Find out where we are scientifically and politically in the transformation to end our reliance on fossil fuels while lighting the pathways toward a clean-energy future.

This speech was given at the 2016 National Bioneers Conference.

Janine Benyus – Hippie Game Changer for Corporate Nonsense | Bioneers 2016 Short Clips Series

Watch the full talk here.

Our species is finally turning toward other species for their embodied wisdom, borrowing these insights to solve challenges such as delivering nutrition in a way that nourishes both planet and people. Biomimicry author and visionary Janine Benyus shows how nature-inspired breakthroughs in agriculture are evolving from plant-focused “silver bullets” to system-savvy healing. She gives us a sneak preview of the amazing entries in the Biomimicry Global Design Challenge in food systems. She explores how the “democratization of invention” is growing more biomimetic – as teams turn to nature together, in massive parallel, to discover a multitude of wild ideas that work together as a system. Cooperation, naturally enough, is the best way to learn from life’s genius!

This speech was given at the 2016 National Bioneers Conference.

Vien Truong – Make Polluters Pay

This short is an excerpt of Vien Truong’s Bioneers Keynote address. Watch the full talk here.

Vien Truong, director of Green For All, has worked tirelessly to bring equity, social justice and climate justice to the frontlines of the environmental movement and public policy. She has been a central force in putting environmental justice at the center of California’s groundbreaking climate policy, legislation and cap-and-trade funding. Vien shares her wise perspectives on how to build a new clean-energy economy that brings prosperity and justice to low-income communities and communities of color.

Bren Smith – Restorative Ocean Farmers | Bioneers 2016 Short Clips Series

Watch the full talk here.

Bren Smith, founder of GreenWave and winner of the 2015 Buckminster Fuller Challenge award, tells his personal story of ecological redemption. He dropped out of high school and became a commercial fisherman at age 14, but witnessed the destruction of the ocean firsthand. In a quest for a better way, he pioneered a revolutionary new model of harvesting bounty from the seas. He describes his innovative, practical design and future vision for “restorative 3-D ocean farming”. It restores ecosystems, mitigates climate change, creates jobs in a blue-green economy, and ensures healthy, secure local food for communities.

This speech was given at the 2016 National Bioneers Conference.

Vien Truong – Create a World That We Want

Watch the full talk here.

Vien Truong, director of Green For All, has worked tirelessly to bring equity, social justice and climate justice to the frontlines of the environmental movement and public policy. She has been a central force in putting environmental justice at the center of California’s groundbreaking climate policy, legislation and cap-and-trade funding. Vien shares her wise perspectives on how to build a new clean-energy economy that brings prosperity and justice to low-income communities and communities of color.

This speech was given at the 2016 National Bioneers Conference.

Mark Plotkin – Why Ethnobotanists Don’t Read Science Fiction

Enjoy this excerpt of Mark Plotkin’s address to the Bioneers Conference and watch the full talk here.

“I’m here this morning to tell you why ethnobotanists like myself don’t read science fiction. This is not a picture of a spider. This is a picture of a fungus. It’s my favorite fungus. It’s called cordyceps.

Cordyceps lives quiescent on the forest floor and waits for insects and arachnids to go past. Once they do that, the fungus attaches itself to the insect exoskeleton. Once it’s on that, the fungus burns a hole in the insect exoskeleton. It then inserts itself inside the insect exoskeleton. It then proceeds to devour virtually all of the insect’s non-vital organs. Once it’s done that, the fungus invades the insect brain, eating only a part of the insect brain, causing the insect to climb to the top of the tallest tree in the forest. Once it does that, the fungus eats the rest of the insect brain, thereby causing the insect exoskeleton to split open, thereby allowing the fungus to release its spores 120 feet above the forest floor.This is why ethnobotanists do not read science fiction.

This fungus is the source of cyclosporine. This is an immunosuppressant that makes organ transplant surgery possible. Nature is a deep treasure chest of mysteries, and most of them still remain.”

Mark Plotkin, groundbreaking ethnobotanist and author of seminal books including “Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice”, works closely with Indigenous peoples and uncontacted tribes in the northwest Amazon. As co-founder of the Amazon Conservation Team in 1995, he has worked as a partner with over 30 South American tribes, including the Kogi, to map, manage and protect over 70 million acres of ancestral forests. In his full address, Plotkin describes collaboration with elder healers to develop and implement successful “Shamans and Apprentices” programs to transmit sacred healing information down through generations within the tribes themselves.

This speech was given at the 2016 National Bioneers Conference.

Image courtesy WikiCommons: This image is Image Number 0014287 at Insect Images, a source for entomological images operated by The Bugwood Network at the University of Georgia and the USDA Forest Service.