Jury
The great diversity of experiences, perspectives, and accomplishments represented by these jurors reflect the comprehensive nature of this Challenge and the spirit of Buckminster Fuller's pioneering work.
The 2008 Buckminster Fuller Challenge Jury:
Janine Benyus |
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 Janine Benyus is a natural sciences writer, innovation consultant, and author of six books, including her latest — Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. Since the book’s 1997 release, Janine has evolved the practice of biomimicry, consulting with sustainable business, academic, and government leaders, serving on the Eco-Dream Team at Interface, Inc., and conducting seminars about what we can learn from the genius that surrounds us. Her favorite role is biologist-at-the-design-table, introducing innovators to organisms whose well-adapted designs have been tested over 3.8 billion years. In 1998, Janine co-founded an education and innovation practice called Biomimicry Guild. Through workshops, research reports, biological consulting, and field excursions, the Guild helps innovators learn from and emulate natural models. The goal is to create products, processes, and policies that create conditions conducive to life. Janine is currently creating the Biomimicry Design Portal — a public database of biological literature organized by design function. She is also developing a ‘biology - taught - functionally’ course for engineers and designers, the only biology most will encounter in their university education. To help further Biomimicry education and research, she recently founded the non-profit Biomimicry Institute. These projects are intended to create a flow structure so that nature’s ideas can move freely into human systems design. An educator at heart, Janine believes that the more people learn from nature’s mentors, the more they’ll want to protect them. This is why she writes, speaks, and revels in describing the wild teachers in our midst. Janine Benyus |
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| Sir Nicholas Grimshaw |
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 Sir Nicholas Grimshaw graduated with Honours from the Architectural Association in 1965 and imediately started his own practice. His buildings of the 60s and 70s gained recognition for their innovative approach to construction and detailing. Nicholas Grimshaw and Partners was formed in 1980, over time cementing a reputation for rational building that draws on rigorous engineering combined with the fundamental principles of architecture and a profound understanding of the materials. Sir Nicholas Grimshaw has lectured in 21 countries worldside including eight cities in the United States. He is a registered architect in England, France, Germany and Spain. Following examination in 2002 he was also registered to practice architecture in the State of New York. Sir Nicholas Grimshaw was elected a Royal Academician in 1994 and President of the Royal Acadmey in 2004. He is also an Honorary fellow of the AIA. He was knighted in 2002 and continues to actively lead his practice as Chairman of the Board. Sir Nicholas Grimshaw |
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| Hazel Henderson |
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 Dr. Hazel Henderson is a world renowned futurist, evolutionary economist, a worldwide syndicated columnist, consultant on sustainable development, and author of Beyond Globalization, and seven other books. Her editorials appear in 27 languages and more than 400 newspapers. Her articles have appeared in over 250 journals. Her books are translated into German, Spanish, Japanese, Dutch, Swedish, Korean, Portuguese, and Chinese. She sits on several editorial boards, including Futures Research Quarterly, The State of the Future Report, and E/The Environmental Magazine (USA), Resurgence, Foresight and Futures (UK). The first version of her Country Futures Indicators (CFI©), an alternative to the Gross National Product (GNP), is a co-venture with Calvert Group, Inc.: the Calvert-Henderson Quality-of-Life Indicators (Desk Reference Manual, 2000), updated regularly at Calvert-Henderson. In addition, she has been Regent's Lecturer at the University of California (Santa Barbara), held the Horace Albright Chair in Conservation at the University of California (Berkeley), and advised the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment and the National Science Foundation from 1974 to 1980. She is an Honorary Member of the Club of Rome. She shared the 1996 Global Citizen Award with Nobelist A. Perez Esquivel of Argentina. And, in 2007, she was elected a Fellow to the Britain’s Royal Society, founded in 1754. Hazel Henderson |
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| Danny Hillis |
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 W. Daniel (Danny) Hillis is Chairman and Chief Technology Officer of Applied Minds, Inc., a research and development company creating a range of new products and services in software, entertainment, electronics, biotechnology and mechanical design. Previously, Hillis was Vice President, Research and Development at Walt Disney Imagineering, and a Disney Fellow. He developed new technologies and business strategies for Disney's theme parks, television, motion pictures, Internet and consumer products businesses. He also designed new theme park rides, a full sized walking robot dinosaur and various micro mechanical devices. Danny Hillis is an inventor, scientist, author, and engineer. He pioneered the concept of parallel computers that is now the basis for most supercomputers, as well as the RAID disk array technology used to store large databases. He holds over 40 U.S. patents, covering parallel computers, disk arrays, forgery prevention methods, and various electronic and mechanical devices. Danny Hillis is also the designer of a 10,000-year mechanical clock. Hillis is co-chairman of The Long Now Foundation, a member of the Science Board of the Santa Fe Institute, the SETI Institute's Technical Advisory Committee, the Advisory Board of Yale's Institute for Biospheric Studies, the National Academy of Engineering, and the board of the Hertz Foundation. Dr. Hillis is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Spirit of American Creativity Award for his inventions, the Hopper Award for his contributions to computer science and the Ramanujan Award for his work in applied mathematics. He is a Fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Fellow in the International Leadership Forum. Danny Hillis |
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| Hunter Lovins |
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 L. Hunter Lovins is President and founder of the Natural Capitalism Solutions. NCS educates senior decision-makers in business, government and civil society to restore and enhance the natural and human capital while increasing prosperity and quality of life. In partnership with leading thinkers and implementers, NCS creates innovative, practical tools and strategies to enable companies, communities and countries to become more sustainable. Trained as a sociologist and lawyer (JD), Hunter co-founded the California Conservation Project (Tree People), and Rocky Mountain Institute, which she led for 20 years. Lovins has consulted for scores of industries and governments worldwide. She has consulted with large and small companies including the International Finance Corporation, Royal Dutch Shell, Interface, Clif Bar and Wal-Mart. Governmental clients include the Pentagon, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy and other agencies, numerous cities, and the governments of Jamaica, Australia, and the U.S. She also serves an advisor to the Energy Minister of the Government of Afghanistan. Recipient of such honors as the Right Livelihood Award, Lindbergh Award and Leadership in Business, she was named Time Magazine 2000 Hero of the Planet. She has co-authored nine books and hundreds of papers, including the 1999 book, Natural Capitalism and 2006 Climate Protection Manual for Cities. She has served on the boards of governments, non and for profit companies. Hunter Lovins |
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| William McDonough |
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 William McDonough is a world-renowned architect and designer and winner of three U.S. presidential awards: the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development (1996), the National Design Award (2004); and the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award (2003). He is founder and principal of two design firms: William McDonough + Partners, Architecture and Community Design, which has created numerous landmarks of the sustainability movement since 1981, and McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry, which employs a comprehensive Cradle to Cradle design protocol to chemical benchmarking, supply-chain integration, energy and materials assessment, clean-production qualification, and sustainability issue management and optimization. Time magazine recognized him as a “Hero for the Planet” in 1999, stating that “his utopianism is grounded in a unified philosophy that - in demonstrable and practical ways - is changing the design of the world.” William McDonough |
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| Vandana Shiva |
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 “Shiva has devoted her life to fighting for the rights of the ordinary people of India her fierce intellect and her disarmingly friendly, accessible manner have made her a valuable advocate for people all over the developing world.” - Ms. Magazine “A leading thinker who has eloquently blended her views on the environment, agriculture, spirituality, and women's rights into a powerful philosophy.” - Utne Reader “One of the world's most prominent radical scientists.” - The Guardian Born in India in 1952, Vandana Shiva is a world-renowned environmental leader and thinker. Director of the Research Foundation on Science, Technology, and Ecology, she is the author of many books, including Water Wars: Pollution, Profits, and Privatization (South End Press, 2001), Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge (South End Press, 1997), Monocultures of the Mind (Zed, 1993), The Violence of the Green Revolution (Zed, 1992), and Staying Alive (St. Martin's Press, 1989). Shiva is a leader in the International Forum on Globalization, along with Ralph Nader and Jeremy Rifkin. She addressed the World Trade Organization summit in Seattle, 1999, as well as the recent World Economic Forum in Melbourne , 2000. In 1993, Shiva won the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize (the Right Livelihood Award). The founder of Navdanya (“nine seeds”), a movement promoting diversity and use of native seeds, she also set up the Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology in her mother’s cowshed in 1997. Its studies have validated the ecological value of traditional farming and been instrumental in fighting destructive development projects in India . Before becoming an activist, Shiva was one of India’s leading physicists. She holds a master’s degree in the philosophy of science and a Ph.D. in particle physics. Vandana Shiva |
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