A critical perspective on Standing Rock is shared here by Kayla DeVault, a youth ambassador for Generation Indigenous. “To understand Standing Rock, you must remove the Western lens and adopt a holistic, indigenous perspective of the world….
Be sure to catch this moving keynote delivered by this year’s Bioneers conference from Bren Smith, founder and CEO of GreenWave and winner of the 2015 BFI Challenge. Bren explains how GreenWave uses a zero-input 3D ocean farming model to create jobs, capture CO2 while protecting the commons.
A new £200,000 prize fund has been announced by Lush,the “handmade cosmetics company,” for “initiatives where energy, natural resources and materials are conserved and enriched and contribute towards equitable development.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has just published a report on the prospects of the Circular Economy in India.
On November 16th, BFI hosted the 2016 Fuller Challenge Conferring Ceremony at the Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn, New York. The 2016 Fuller Challenge Winner was awarded the $100,000 grand prize. Guests also celebrated the work of the student category winner and five finalists. Click for details and photos.
Read a letter from Elizabeth Thompson reflecting on her work as BFI's Executive Director over the past 12 years. Elizabeth will transition out of her role to focus exclusively on the Buckminster Fuller Challenge as it head into its 10th anniversary cycle, serving as its Founding Director. Included here is an overview of her work on the development of BFI's educational programs, the Fuller Challenge, work with artists, curators, and cultural institutions, as well as historic restorations and commissions.
Twelve finalists were recently selected in the 2016-17 World Habitat Awards. These included 2015 Fuller Challenge Finalist The Nubian Vault Programme and 2016 Fuller Challenge Finalist Cooperación Comunitaria. Read about the awards and the recognition of our incredible finalists here.
The idea of using technology for deliberative democracy goes back to Buckminster Fuller, who in the 1940’s, proposed voting over the telephone. Click to read a recent Big Think article about a model for digitizing democracy in order to reinvigorate American political life.
Global Urban Innovators is a program of the New Cities Foundation that supports a community of trailblazing international urban tech companies. The program chooses innovators for their radically new approaches to improving cities around the world, who will have the opportunity to showcase their work at the New Cities Summit to take place in June 2017 in South Korea. Find more information here.
Civic synergy is the collective power of people in organized networks to transform the systems that affect their lives. Greg Watson of the Schumacher Center for a New Economics expounds upon Fuller's trimtab principle, whole systems, and the concept of a design science revolution in this new online resource, Civic Synergy. Click to access the site, read the blog, and join the Civic Synergy network.