Technology, Innovation and the Environment Program
The next generation of environmental challenges and opportunities will be shaped by shifts in the way we think, make, and innovate. ELI’s Technology, Innovation, and the Environment Program focuses on how we can better understand the environmental impacts and opportunities created through emerging technologies and their underlying innovation systems, structural changes in the economy, and new roles for the public in environmental research and protection.
Some of the spaces we are exploring include:
- Thinking: machine learning, networks, cloud and cognitive computing, distributed sensing, improving human thinking and decisionmaking;
- Making: the next production revolution, bioeconomy, DIY-everything, 3-D printing; and
- Innovating: crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, citizen science, sharing economy, simulations/video games.
Driving Environmental Performance
As a venture focused on high impact, the Lab…
Explores breakthroughs in science, technology, policy and other catalysts that will inevitably reshape the future of sustainability
Experiments to identify feasible solutions with the potential to enhance environmental performance
Engages change makers who have a passion for advancing transformative ideas
At the very core of the Lab is an entrepreneurial spirit that inspires new thinking. Designed to drive environmental performance in strategic spaces with ample opportunity for movement, the Lab:
✔ Mobilizes citizens to fill data gaps for management decisions, enforcement actions, and scientific knowledge
✔ Expands understanding of complex environmental challenges through games based learning
✔ Scans the horizon for opportunities and threats of novel entities, emerging technologies and policy changes
✔ Advances environmental stewardship among budding industries, young entrepreneurs and small businesses