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Let's all take a journey back in time to that first, curious fish who
crawled out of the ocean onto that warm sandy beach about 400 million years ago.
First off, what a crazy experience that must have been for the fish.
I imagine they're turning around looking lost being like, hey,
do you guys know there's a whole world out here?
So that first fish, was essentially the iPhone one of land animals.
It was a prototype, a minimum viable product.
It was really exciting, but definitely not perfect.
But each generation, that fish's kids got better at surviving thicker lungs and
feet, and pretty soon they were running instead of swimming.
In essence, they iterated through evolution.
So why does that sound so familiar, out of business school.
It's because evolution is just finding product market fit.
Let me say that again.
Evolution is just finding product market fit.
Now we have everything, from beavers to butterflies, each one unique and
incredibly well adapted to what it does.
Okay, yes, I know butterflies flutter around a little bit, but
I don't see you with a drone that can run on nectar.
So, how can we draw insights from nature to design our own technology?
The answer, is biomimicry.
Biomimicry, is nature inspired innovation, and
it is incredibly overlooked opportunity for humanity.
My name is Benjamin Kramer, and I'm an MBA student here at the GSB, and
today, we're going to talk about how biomimicry,
could be the key to unlocking some of society's greatest technical challenges.
So first let's start with a couple examples so
you can see what I'm talking about.
Is a crisp autumn morning in the 1940s, and a Frenchman was that walking his dog.
The same path they walked every day, and his dog took off into the bushes.
When it came back a couple minutes later, wagging his tail and very proud of
himself, the man noticed that there was a couple birds stuck in his dogs fur.
And as he knelt over, pulling each one out one by one, the craziest thing happened.
He had an epiphany.
What if, the little hooks holding these seeds to my dog's fur could be used
to hold fabric together?
Without that insight, we wouldn't have Velcro.
And we'd be stuck tying shoes for every five year old in the country.
I have my own Velcro moment and about 10 years ago.
I was hiking with my dad and brother, in Zion National Park,
it was a warm summer's day, one of those that feels timeless.
When I looked down, to see a little spider hanging from a thread on my arm.
I thought to myself, could we milk spiders for thread, my dad ever the pragmatist,
pointed out that milking spiders did not seem like the best business model and
he was totally right.
So then I thought, can we mimic it instead,
can we make artificial spider silk?
Back home I rushed to my computer,
eager to trademark the name silk with a Y instead of an eye, of course and
was super disappointed to find out, that in fact someone was already doing it.
After the requisite time for teenage sulking, I picked myself up and
kept searching for my next Velcro moment.
As an aside, that company was bolt threads, and
they've already raised $200 million If I get
come up with that idea as a teenager, what could society accomplish as a whole?
If we all just looked a little deeper at nature, what could we build,
if we look to the designs of the plants and animals around us for inspiration.
Now some of you are probably thinking, okay, yes, spider silk and
Velcro are great, but is anyone else really doing this?
So let's go through a couple more examples, so
I can really give you a taste of the potential.
For the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney,
speedo unveiled a new bathing suit modeled after a shark skin.
And 80% of the swimmers that year wearing Speedo suit medals.
On the totally other side of the spectrum,
Neural Networks being developed by cutting edge AI firms,
are in part being designed after the neural networks in our own brains.
And the best part is, it can be applied to any industry,
you just have to know where to look.
Building a swarm of drones,
look at how a flock of birds can fly at 35 miles an hour without crashing.
Or an architectural firm, looking to design a green building,
can look at how a termite mound is able to keep the same temperature
all year round, without any access to electricity.
And some people think there's as many as 8.7 million.
Think of all the potential for society,
we just looked at the designs of the plants and animals around us.
But we humans are pretty cocky bunch.
Build a couple skyscrapers, invent ice cream, and We're pretty sure of ourselves.
We think, we can just sit back and come up with new ideas out of thin air.
Okay not us but like some humans probably.
Einstein once famously said, you cannot solve problems
by using the same thinking that you used when you created them.
We're all too familiar, with the problems that our current thinking has created.
There's climate change, resource depletion, pollution,
I'm here to propose that biomimicry can help us think differently.
Biomimicry can help us break into entirely new areas of innovation.
We don't need to rely on our own ingenuity anymore to solve these problems.
There's a million guides out there, just waiting to help us out.
20 years ago, Human Centered Design, was introduced on the TED stage.
Today, it's expected knowledge in most companies and
major business schools around the world.
So, now it's time for nature centered design.
We need every advantage and our fight to save our planet and our health, and
biomimicry could be what tips the odds in our favor.
So, what do you see the nature has that we should be copying?
What can you invent, to help push innovation further?
What can you take home from a walk in the woods?
What is your Velcro moment.
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