IDEC’s closing keynote speaker – Janine Benyus

Janine Benyus is a natural sciences write, innovation consultant, and author of six books, including her latest Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. In Biomimcry, she names an emerging discipline that seeks sustainable solutions by emulating nature’s design and processes. Since the book’s 1997 release, Janine has evolved the practice of biomimicry, consulting with sustainable business, academic, and government leaders, serving on the Eco-Design Team at Interface, Inc., and conducting seminars about what we can learn from the genius that surrounds us. Her favorite role is biologist-at-the-design-table, introducing innovators to organisms whose well-adapted designs have been tested over 3.8 billion years.

Janine has cultivated a deep knowledge of the natural world, beginning with direct observation in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, continuing in habitats from Maine to West Virginia where she worked as a backcountry guide, now, in her home in the wilds of Montana.

In 1998, Janine co-founded an education and innovation practice called Biomimicry Guild. Through workshops, research reports, biological consulting, and field excursions, the Guild helps innovators learn from and emulate natural models. The goal is to create products, processes, and policies that create conditions conductive to life. As a result of working with the Biomimicry Guild, the world’s largest commercial carpet manufacturer (Interface) introduced Entropy, a carpet inspired by random pattern foundation in nature. In record time, Entropy rose to become Interface’s top-selling line of carpet. Three years later, this biomimetric product is still their best seller.

Janine is currently a Google for Nature’s Solutions- a public database literature organized by design function. She is developing a “biology-taught-functionally” course for engineers and designers, the only biology most will encounter in their university education. These projects are intended to create a flow structure so that nature’s ideas can move freely into human systems design.

An educator at heart, Janine believes that the more people learn from nature’s mentors, the more they’ll want to protect them. This is why she writes, speaks and revels in describing the wild teachers in our midst.