Launch of Biomimicry Institute Student Design Challenge Accelerator Program Hero Image

Launch of Biomimicry Institute Student Design Challenge Accelerator Program

May 1, 2013 - Jun 1, 2013 • San Francisco, CA


The Biomimcry Institute and partner StartupNectar are developing a program that will help student design teams turn their innovative conceptual designs into entrepreneurial business ventures based on nature’s design principles. The program is being built upon the existing Student Design Challenge, an annual competition among students around the world that showcases the design concepts in architectural and product design that best employ natural principles.

StartupNectar, a biomimicry incubator for startup businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area, is working with the Bioimicry Institute to provide mentoring to groups of student entrepreneurs as part of a three month accelerator program. An initial group of 20 teams will be offered mentorship calls, a template of a business plan that guides them to incorporate relevant Life’s Principles in each section of the plan, contacts in specific subject matter areas, and connections to local incubator resources through a partnership with the Global Cleantech Cluster Association and local Biomimicry network associations.

The long term objective is to transform the innovative design ideas that the Biomimicry Institute and various partners have been propagating for the past several years into actual businesses that start to change the way living environments and products are designed.

Blackstone Ranch Institute provided an initial seed grant in 2009 to the team of designers that developed the Student Design Challenge, and has provided an innovation challenge grant to start the new accelerator program.

Biomimicry 3.8 Institute

The Biomimicry Institute’s mission is to nurture and grow a global community of people who are learning from, emulating, and conserving life’s genius to create a healthier, more sustainable planet....

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