Tech Under Open Air: Innovation Inspired by nature

Hi,

This is my opening article for this blog, and hence I have chosen one of the most interesting topics at the TOA'14. 

Most of us love nature, we love looking at calm, serene, green & peaceful nature. It helps us calm down and organize our thoughts better. Looking at the lush green forests is often the most calming experience. We all like observing nature, but some of us do that with the intention of understanding it better. We have all reached a peak in many of our daily needs, we now have better housing and delicious foods from around the world like never before. We all enjoy perks instant global communication on individual and professional level. But we are not yet better at some of the things that nature has been perfecting for millions of years, over thousands of generations. This gives nature a unique advantage over all us when it comes to efficient system. Biomimicry is a new and upcoming field, which learns from nature and incorporates some of the genius of natural design to solve very real - often industrial scale problems.

Biomimicry Germany is one such consulting company, which is keenly looking towards nature and take inspirations from it, in design and engineering developments. Dr. Prateep Beed and Dr. Arndt Pechstein, co-founders of Biomimicry Germany, which is situated in Berlin gave an ignite talk about the nature inspired design. Starting with the example of Shinkansen, the latest generation of bullet trains, takes inspiration from Kingfisher bird, which dives at very high velocities into that water and creates minimum splash. Kingfisher has developed a unique beak which disturbs the water at minimum possible level, so that it maximizes it's chances of catching a fish, it also makes sure that the bird doesn't lost a lot of energy when transitioning from air to water back to the air again.

Another such fascinating example, is that of spider web. Have you ever wondered how they are not destroyed by birds flying around the trees. I mean, we often walk through the spider webs without realizing that they are there, but birds seem to avoid them. After close investigations, scientists found out a material, that spider uses to coat the webs, which reflects light in UV range of the spectrum which birds can see, but we cannot. Now, this has helped us solve a problem of birds flying at glass walls which we increasingly use in the façade of our buildings. Researchers have mimicked this material and they use very fine threads which are then woven into the glass. These threads reflect UV light similar to spider webs and thus help avoid birds flying at the glass façades. 

If you are fascinated by such examples, then make sure to catch one of the talks by Biomimicry Germany by following them on their Facebook page. In the next week, we will come back with a short interview of the speakers, Dr. Prateep Beed and Dr. Arndt Pechstein, so keep watching this space for new and exciting content from TOA'14 Berlin. 

Until then, Cheers ! :)