Why Biomimicry?

Our planet spins already 5 billion years very fast in a universe. And we are glued inside with magnetic powers and nano-hairs. Van der Waals powers is the technical term. Gecko's do it too. They can walk on ceilings. But we walk on ceilings too. Because we spin!

Why aren't our cheeks wobbly with G-power winds? Well we are IN the planet. And our ear-brain-connection keeps up upright. Our planet make everything from light (photosynthesis) and sound. And Mike and I are curious beings on a journey, so we are mesmerized with this fact.

I have a condition called synesthesia, so I taste milk when I'm in a petrol station, numbers have colors and they "fall" in the night in patterns in my mind. Mike and I both have mixed genes. Mine are EU-Asia, Mike's are EU-Africa. So, that might explain it. We are "weird".

In 2012, I woke one morning and knew that my time in business plasma and vacuum magazines was over. I needed to be in health & sustainability. And I needed to use my business skills there. I see through systems easily, have an analytical and creative mind and see all innovations happen fast. That's my superpower. Paradoxical Systems of Planet-People-Profit. PLACE | TIME | SPACE.

Biomimetics and Mechanical Engineering

Innovation starts with seeing the void/space for better. And that space is huge! In 2012, I started having my first talks with prof. Julian Vincent. He spoke sense.

Image by mechanical engineering professor Julian Vincent. Published with permission of the Royal Society.

He explained to me that nature finds evolutionary solutions in 80% of the time different than human engineering. And yes, I knew that already. The biggest thingy is internal or external energy. In 2007, I read this article. https://scienceinschool.org/article/2007/biomimetics/

Where comes the confusion?

Take food production. We need 10x more external energy in our combustion engines than we produce calories (human energy). That's stupid! We need to brings those 2 closer together. 2 in is 2 out. 22 in is 22 out. Production should be used fully to be energy efficient and full productivity. Humans have the creative design brains, all the rest can be done by nature.

Pine Cone as Ultra Statistics

But then, I started realizing that a pine cone is better in engineering and statistics than humans or supercomputers. Think with me. The pine cone hooks into an invisible grid, just like the trout. They do not have a mind, but they do have neurons. The Earth-grid tells them when they are ripe. And when the pine cone has fallen, the Earth-grid tells them when the environmental conditions are perfect for opening. It is a statistic thingy. When do your children have the best chance of survival and thriving given the seasonal conditions. Temperature. Moist.

Pine cone as the best statitician. Opening and closing without combustion engine. INTERNAL energy + minimum external energy by noticing and harvesting differences.

But have a closer look at the pinecone. No combustion engine. No intake of oxygen. No carbon emissions that make smog and block out lungs. And biodegradable in time.

Since 1992, the book of Janine Benyus, Biomimicry, we have been mimicking the principles of pine cones and others in modern technology. You see it in the modern electrical cars, where braking by engine (not by brake!) is turning friction into charging. The turn-around feedback loop. But of course, there's much more to it than that. Nature never uses wheels and doesn't throw microplastics in the air due to tire wear. Hahahahaha.

So, I'm very glad that I entered this innovation scene and founded the Abundance Academy in 2012 and built my economic strategy career with the insights of nature. Nature and dynamics is how it happens. Natural environment is what we need to be human and healthy. For whoever is not exactly technical, in the website Ask Nature you can find the nature's principles. I advise farmers for their 80/20 business models, including year-round pollination.

No compaction of the soil. Topsoil needs to breathe oxygen and have texture too...

We won the Alliance of IOT Innovations hackathon in 2023 about Greek wildfires, edible landscapes, and 2EARN blockchains for full stakeholder involvement. Made the apps, distributed the analogue communication to hotels in Peloponnese Living. Our 86,000+ community of Greece and Peloponnese local who want to live there in the off-seasons too.

LIVING - not holidaying. Being involved with the Greek locals.

The wildfire project got a follow-up now with Genicap and Dutch Brainport. Disruptive Solutions. Ultra-climate-adaptations in smart-healthy cities and rural areas. I'm preparing the pitch for European Space Agency start-funding right now. We are a consortium of a software company, nature's mathematicians, and nano-satellites, so we can do it all with minimum waste and material use.

Or first product will be a 40% faster wildfire-emergency-response SaaS. A software as a service which we will offer with price differentiation so it can also be scaled to poor countries and poor indigenous communities like those 37 chapters of volunteer wildfire fighters in Cordoba, Argentine I interviewed in the first project.

The need is there. The solution is available - we adapt it from an existing logistics solution in 2 months - and will add predictability and fire behavior in version 2.

Full Stakeholder Involvement in Wildfire Solutions

The first analogue communication solutions in the hotels, warning apps, poles with rubber flaps along the hiking paths, AR-app water drop hunting for awareness - Pokemon Go Style - and 2EARN over blockchains are ready and in implementation phase.

But we go on and on and on finding more and more and more scalable solutions. Edible landscapes without eucalyptus. Too flammable and water-intensive and bamboo or pauwlonia trees have much better root structure to regenerate the soils.

DESIGN - DESIGN - DESIGN - SYSTEMS

To be honest with you, we will probably never do it completely like nature does it, because nature doesn't have money, just data and value. Trees don't have to think about economies and house-building, and shelter for migrant people, etc. Nature just says: BE AUTONOMOUS. Find shelter! Use an empty shell. Nature also uses mainly 5 elements of the chemical table. And nature uses structure for function instead of thick materials. We don't need concrete. But it is handy...

People are lazy designers. That's okay. We go to the moon. Most species don't do that. We are great with tools. Most species are not. But it IS true that we should find better solutions for the huge toxicity in the world. No PFAS (forever chemicals). No hormone disturbing pesticides and making it good by calling it "crop protection".

It's a business thingy by the chemical companies. Buy our hybrid (infertile) seeds and get a free bottle of pesticides. But our children get cancer. And that's not normal... Fertility should be in the lead of it all.

So, if you are confused what is a YES or a NO GO, just go to our services page and book a free 15-min call. Tell me your question, where you are stuck, ecology or economy or systems, and I coach you in a short design sprint to your next steps.

Warm regards,

Desiree.

P.S. and don't forget, we are meant to be outdoorsies having fun and adventures...