Why ‘biomimicry’ is a great way-in to science & entrepreneurship.
Context: This is the second article in a ten-week series about what I learnt at Singularity University this summer. Here’s the 1st article on space, the 3rd on Virtual Reality and Oculus Rift and the 4th on Alzheimer’s and video games.
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I’m not a biologist. Unlike all my siblings, I’m not even an engineer and, let’s be fair, I suck at science and have no idea about how most of the things work around me. Good news though: I don’t have a sense of shame when asking questions either and I realized we have tons of answers around us already.
You can learn anything. Starting now.
“Can you set up huge magnets to have a space satellite ‘attached’ to a point on Earth? Could you download/upload your brain? Can you impact a single and precise neuron/memory ? What (else) could you build with mushrooms ? Is there a stockmarket for DNA ?”
Yes, those are real questions.
I found them reading my class notes from this summer and frown on a couple of them now. These questions are, of course, more reactions to what I was listening to but it’s interesting to see how ‘out of the blue’ they can seem now… and it’s fascinating to see how many of these questions could be (at least partly) answered by the Internet (as I explained in a previous article) but also Open Lab communities. In Paris, for example, La Paillasse is super welcoming.
Playing Moonshots : confident as a kid, pragmatic as a grown-up.
As this great Khan Academy video remind us, you can learn anything. Yes, kids learn very quickly as they do have more brain connections but it’s also because they keep trying, failing and are not really expected to do anything else. They confidently break stuff all the time and play « what if?», adjusting the experiment they’re into and only have to discover their environment. This summer along with my whole class, we experimented the same setting: we were fed and hosted at NASA, had nothing to worry about and could focus on random topics and experiments.
The ‘Lab’ (hardware heaven at SU) was for this a great 24/7 playground with fellow teachers ready to explain you anything, helping you feel you could unlock any challenge. You can then embrace the Moonshot Thinking (the way Google X does) and feel the confidence you can do it, whatever is it (Raspberry Pi, coding, 3D printing, etc.).
Where to start then? Biomimicry is a great entry to science: open your eyes and copy Nature.
Where to start when you’re not a scientist? Turn your computer off. Go out in Nature (yes, in the real world). Open your eyes.
Lots of our day-to-day environment was designed by copying nature: this great way-in to design and science is called Biomimicry (from greek: ‘bio’ — life and ‘mimesis’ — copy). Here are a couple of examples:
- the Golden Number: the magic ratio between elements that brings visual harmony. It’s everywhere in Nature (shells, trees, faces, even hurricanes) and now in design in company logos or Apple products.
- Products — Photovoltaic panels were inspired by the way leaves harvest sunlight as part of photosynthesis. Office buildings were copied after termine dens.
- Systems — In many countries, subways maps were optimized by copying the same way ants build their underground galleries. Even whole species, like monkeys, are now an inspiration to sustainability experts.
It’s all about confidence and common sense.
Many fantasies circulate about what you learn at Singularity University. I believe we do learn some ideas (some of them on TED already) but the real magic happens in 1-to-few interactions with our classmates or staff members when we shamelessly share specific concepts and experiences: that gives us confidence in what we’re coming up with.
Building this culture is super key : HEC Paris (focused on business) is for example part of the amazing new Paris-Saclay University. I’m luckily surrounded by tons of brilliants researchers, labs and R&D centers but too few connexions are made today. Any idea of how to create bridges between them and us?… wait, how do bees work?
