What opportunities can arise when we become entrepreneurs with nature as our advisor? Biomimicry is a field that takes inspiration from the natural world, which holds 3.8 billion years of elegant solutions and ideas based on R&D tested throughout evolutionary time. It can guide us through many of our struggles with how to consume and produce, how to exchange, how to take and give back, and how to balance and share.

In this workshop, we will look at what happens when we view entrepreneurship through the lens of biomimicry. Entrepreneurs hold a significant ability and potential to lead us through our climate challenges by offering solutions using nature as guidance, client, and stakeholder. The possibilities are endless – only your curiosity and imagination are needed as skillful ingredients. It is a joyful process of discovery that often brings you outdoors and to a sustainable solution, and it begins with a simple question: ‘what would nature do here’?

This workshop will offer:

• a viewpoint of nature as a valid stakeholder and advisor in the design process
• new perspectives on sustainability and the ability to arrive at innovative solutions inspired by nature’s examples
• insight into how biomimicry shows new ways of creating value, managing growth, and expanding entrepreneurial knowledge, where the ‘value’ is intricately tied to sustainable and restorative development
• a look at nature’s innovation as a guiding framework connecting us to an ecosystem perspective, biodiversity, and multi-species

Skills gained in this workshop

Participants will:

• develop a new way to view, value and reconnect with nature
• learn how to apply biomimicry as a design model for sustainable and restorative solutions
• learn how to work in multi-disciplinary teams and collectively explore resources and values from biology and the life sciences
• understand nature’s principles and apply them to help solve challenges and to achieve ecological innovation
• look at how a variety of species adapt to their ecosystem and practice how to translate these values into entrepreneurial solutions

Who should attend?

Participants should have:

• a desire and openness to learn from nature and to work in multidisciplinary teams
• a drive to become a steward in the sustainability field
• an understanding that research is an important part of the process and practice
• an understanding that knowledge gained from nature will help in sustainability design processes

ELIGIBILITY & SELECTION

All students and alumni of SSES member universities are eligible to apply to this weekend workshop. We get many applications and unfortunately cannot accept everyone. The selection process is outlined below:

SELECTION PROCESS

1. Application is reviewed
2. Selection is made and a confirmation email is sent out
3. Participants must confirm their seat in order to secure the spot
4. If spots are not confirmed in time, the waitlist will be reviewed and new participants selected

About the teacher

Dr. Anna Maria Orrù has been an educator, professional researcher and enthusiast in the field of biomimicry since 2003. She has worked within architecture since 1999, both in practice and research with Grimshaw, Exploration Architecture, and Arup Group in London as well as internationally. In 2010, she moved to Sweden and has since been teaching and driving biomimicry education in various Swedish universities. Now based in Sweden and Italy, she holds a PhD in Architecture from Chalmers University of Technology (‘Wild Poethics’ 2017) which furthered the topic of nature-inspired design using artistic research and embodied methodologies. She also holds an Affiliated Senior Lecturer position at Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts & Design where she is responsible for embedding nature-inspired sustainability. She is co-author on the study for the Nordic Council of Ministers on the ’state of biomimicry in the Nordics’ and co-founder of Nordic Biomimicry, where she directs the centre that dedicates itself to collaborate with nature as a mentor, measure, and method. To further underpin her service to nature, she is a beekeeper and takes care of a biodynamic vineyard and olive grove. In her continued efforts to co-habit and collaborate with nature, she has embarked on creating a nature academy on her Tuscan farm.

www.annamariaorru.com
www.nordicbiomimicry.org

Image credit: Christopher Backholm