August 2010 - Each year, around this time, we take a look at the most promising ‘on trend’ innovations, as spotted by our sister company Springwise. No surprise, that with the entire world now battling it out in the consumer arena, the amount of talent, of creativity, of innovations, is staggering. Welcome to INNOVATION INSANITY ; -)
(thanks BeDo!)
POPTECH ECOMATERIALS INNOVATION LAB
Collaborating on the future of breakthrough green materials and material ecosystems
The PopTech Ecomaterials Innovation Lab convenes this summer with a goal of fostering breakthroughs in next-generation, ‘ultra-green’ ecological materials and industrial processes.
via poptech.org
“The Ecomaterials Innovation Lab brought together a network of eminent and emerging leaders in material science, sustainability, corporate leadership, design, academia, and policy circles. We began the program focused on getting to know one another and exploring the current landscape, system conditions and impediments surrounding the adoption of ecological materials.”
It was a pleasure to be a part of this three day gathering as a graphic facilitator and "creative guru". These are the scientists, designers and policy drivers who are influencing how we make stuff and what happens to it when it "dies".
Check out the article by Beth Cohen on the PopTech blog for more detail on the amazing people and progess we were exposed to.
“Collectively, we unearthed a number of deep insights into this emerging domain. We learned that while we’re spending all of our time thinking about sustainability and climate change in terms of energy sector, in many ways materials may represent a bigger and more impactful part of the problem. We learned about an entirely new, emerging paradigm within the field of lifecycle assessment, that is revealing how materials that look ‘green’ frequently aren’t; that the reverse is also frequently true. We saw firsthand that the biosciences are about to have as big an impact on the energy and materials sectors as they do in healthcare. We learned that industry is way ahead of government in thinking about these issues and that both are way ahead of the average citizen. And we saw firsthand demonstrations of technologies that turn everything from chicken feathers, spider silk, and even raw sewage (!) into useable biopolymers. Most importantly, we created a new and, for the field, unconventional network of thought leaders who are already beginning to collaborate.”
An introduction to GOOD's new series from the Institute for the FutureNever Google the word "futurist." Besides the conflation with Futurism, the early 20th century fascist-leaning art movement, the world’s gateways to knowledge are far from instructive on the subject. Clichés and caricatures abound, with media coverage dominated by allusions to crystal balls and prophesy and the messianic predictions of techno-utopians. The general public's sense of what futurists are is not entirely flattering, and rarely accurate.
This is a shame, because during the second half of the 20th century and continuing through the past decade, professional thinking about the future has grown from a niche field dominated by military strategists and predictioneers into a diverse global practice.
The future is hard to predict, especially since we don't know what's gonna happen! However, I end up working with lots of folks and on lots of projects that try to see around corners. This article gives GOOD insight into the skills and thrills of the futurist game.
