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3i Group ranks 494 with $5.7 billion in revenue (up 0.8%). The Britain-headquartered securities company has 241 employees and made a profit of $5.5 billion (up 0.4%).

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3i Group (TGOPY): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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3i Group (TGOPY): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings | Fortune

Anthony Lo, Chief Design Officer and VP of Global Design, BAIC Group, Frank Wu, Chief Design Officer, JIDU Auto, Wang Fang, Fortune

Brainstorm Design 2024: Shocked!

Conferences

As Tony said, uh China's auto industry is leading a global ev transformation. When they do that, they're increasingly um hiring big name designers from their Western competitors. And we're very happy to have two of such designers with us today. Um Friends, uh sorry, Anthony, let me start with you. You've had this uh legendary career that stretches across continents, countries, brands. And now you recently joined the IC in Beijing Auto, um a Chinese car maker. So share with us a little bit of your journey. Tell us your story. Yeah. Uh Thank you very much for a short introduction, introduction. I'm Anthony Low. I've been working in this industry for quite a while. Started, started off as a young boy falling in love in love with cars and I knew how to draw. So I thought that would be the perfect job. And I started working at Lotus in England many, many years ago, I worked for Audi for a while in Germany and then followed by a stint with Mercedes Benz with General Motors in Europe and also with uh you know, at that time, General Motors used to have a company called S A uh it is not no longer around, but it's, I really enjoyed the period over there. And then in 2010, um I got recruited to John in France. It was my first uh I would say experience for working in France and it was not a destination that I thought about go ending up. And I really enjoyed my, my period over there. And uh because this was a time that when the company was really in need of a refresh uh from a design perspective, we um we had a clean sheet, you know, we can do anything we want but respecting the uh the history, the heritage of the brand and, and that, that was really, I, I stayed in the end 11 years. It's the longest stint in my career and I ended up living in France for, for a long, longer time. And then just before uh joining bike group, I spent some time in uh at Ford uh also being their chief design officer uh for Global Design. Uh This was something that I, again, my first time apart from GMGM, I was based mostly in Europe. I spent more time in Detroit, in Irvine and other global design centers that are also in Melbourne, Shanghai, Germany uh in Cologne and London. So it was great experience to understand, kind of learn a little bit about the uh the global uh uh you know, the different locations, different product lines that are in fact, very different from, you know, stuff that you, you, you can find in Europe and in America and in China, they are all, all very, very different. Uh So I think uh and then in uh if you can click to the next, uh I, I just joined by uh actually in October. So there's not a lot yet I can share, but things are happening really fast. And uh because the, the pace in uh in uh develop a new car is a lot faster than what I'm used to. In fact, I've been, you know, doing this for a while. So in bike, uh we have um I want to bring my, you know, global experience to the bike group uh being um you know, learning how other companies do it, especially from a strategic level. I want to bring my experience to kind of make the brands that are on the bike group, the Beijing brand up Fox and the, and the recently launched the Lotto brand. Uh they are, they are all really, really amazing products. Uh But I think we want this, these brands to develop further, maybe, you know, going into other markets in the world. So it's really, really exciting time. I'm I'm happy to be joining the group right now. So the key question I think everybody has in their mind is what about bike that has attracted you back to China? Yeah, I, I feel that, you know, the industry is going through big changes. Uh I think the uh we all heard about, you know, electric car, new energy vehicles being kind of also in China is leading. But in fact, I, I think it's um we, I I'm really happy to be at the, at the forefront of uh you know, innovation. I, I think I found, I believe I found the right partner and they found me as well. So I, this is really a good moment and I really uh so far uh in my 1st 2.5 months, uh everything has been going great, right? You touched upon the very fast pace that Chinese auto industry is going through uh the the very quick cycles that we turn cars around. So, um but we will come back to later on that Frank, how about your story? Tell us a bit more about your story, your journey. Um So, first of all, I'm really, really honored to be on the same, same stage with Anthony. So Anthony, he's a legendary designer. So it's a huge privilege to be able to share the, the story in our journey. Um For me, II, I grew up in the States most of my life since I was six. Um So ever since, you know, studying automotive design uh in university and then later on uh practicing as a professional car designer at General Motors and also for a Cadillac brand. Um it was a very, very special and very important journey of my career uh milestone. Um And then later on, I actually moved to China and then realized that it's a very, very new transitional period for the automotive industry. Um And I can see also in this slide, there's a lot of new trends that are happening in the auto industry for us. Um the way we look at it is there is a 1.0 era where it's the IC era of automobile design. And then today we're looking at the 2.0 era, which is the era of EV. And as everybody can understand that EV is becoming a majority market that's taking over a lot of the ice vehicles in the global market position. Um And at J do what we're focusing on is more of a 3.0 era, the era of A I vehicles. So how can A I vehicles be able to utilize artificial intelligence, A G I and also autonomous driving to be able to bring a better sort of a lifestyle and also driving journey experience to the future drivers and also passengers. Uh for the new era of the about JJ is a joint venture between uh Baidu, which is sort of China's Google and Ji Li, which is perhaps China's board. So uh let's come back to you and uh more about A I and how cars are becoming more uh um intelligent. So, Anthony, I want to come back to you you've worked for so many car brands. You've designed so many models. You've seen so much change in auto design. I know you've prepared a few slides about the latest trends of car design. So just can you go through with us all these beautiful slides and tell us what are the trends? Yeah, I actually, I just made a very quick personal selection of, uh, you know, 2024 car trend. I focus on styling, not so much on technology and so on. Uh But I think what, what I find um you know, interesting is that how cars have become really sim a lot simpler in terms of styling. Uh you know, things are really modern flushed, you know, things that every designer was dreaming of doing is uh you know, trying to make all things, all the details, more integrated, something quite difficult to do uh in the kind of the earlier era of manufacturing. Uh for example, making things uh high quality, you know, 100,000 times. Uh uh uh you know, in the in the manufacturing process is not so easy, but I think I'm glad to see that really is coming online now with all the new products. But at the same time, I think I also see that some um uh I don't want to call them. Uh I would say something kind of design style in the past, but I think there's a period that when design uh the every manufacturer was tried trying to create more attention by exaggerating certain details, by, by making things a bit. Uh I would say unusual in terms of proportions to able to, you know, generate more attention from customers and hopefully that will create more sales. But I think this, this period, I can see that this is really changing and fading out. Uh If you go ahead and go to the next slide very quickly. Um uh There's also I think what, what I find uh extremely um uh interesting is in China, there's really emerging car culture, I call this just simply China car culture. In fact, for example, the uh car interior or the car itself, it is a technology carrier, it's always connected and, and it's also a place that we you can work, you can play and cars are being sold in mobile phone, uh laptop showrooms very different in, in shopping malls. And also the fact that three generations are often traveling together in China and cars become big. It's like your like an extended room, uh like your 1st 1st space and you can relax, you have zero gravity seats, you can even do yoga. And one of the reasons that you can do all of that is because the EV architecture is a much more uh I would say simpler flatter platform that you can actually create an unexpected layouts and you can cater for the needs of customers. But I see that this is this is this kind of trend is very dynamic because uh uh you know, in, in, in China, there are lots of new, new needs popping up here and there as designers, we always have to follow closely the market, but also keep doing research to really understand where we are heading next. And that's something that um I think we we all going to see um um coming in a few years. And another, another trend I would call it homogeneous styling. Is this something we um I noticed in recent trips to China, there are so many new cars everywhere. Um And, but I kind of couldn't figure out which brands they belong to. And one of the reason this is my personal uh assumption, but uh I think many car designers would agree with me is that because of the development time of a new product, it's really, really fast. I'm talking about less than half the time of traditional O Ems in other parts of the world. And because of that, you don't really have a lot of time to actually come up with all new ideas. So you always tend to kind of like, OK, let's let's go fast and let's choose something that is a little bit more uh I would say safer, something that yeah follow maybe not so much the trend but something you are in your comfort zone. And when you notice that maybe another brand has a car that is selling well or maybe we can do something similar to that because there's no time. And I think every designer that I know all wanting to create something much more unique, something that actually help, help create a stronger identity so that you can be more successful in, in over time. So I think that that's something that is happening. But if you go to the next slide, I think you can see that even more so on the interior. Uh I, I think these are all six car entire interior of six different brands. And uh I think it's very hard to tell which one they are. Until you zoom into the center of the steering wheel, then you will see the logo and then you go OK. That's, I think again, this is a uh a similar uh situation with exterior because uh with, with us interface with the, with the screen size, these are all kind of becoming a standard right now. So I think the future to be successful, like all well well developed, I would say mature markets. I think we need to create more unique identities and both on the interior exterior and the overall user experience. Great great point about uh how fast paced sometimes compromise the unique characteristics and identity of the car brand. Uh You touched upon something that's really interesting. Um China's auto uh design um has only recently been sort of quite well known to the world and it almost coincides with the emerging eb industry. So these things happen um almost at the same time time simultaneously. Uh As you mentioned, that's because um without the combustion engine with only the batteries that the car structure becomes simpler. So allows designers to put more um function and form into it. So um Frank, you work with technology more a little bit more, you make cars more intelligent. So tell us what you do is doing what you do at G do. So shall we have a look at your? Yeah, sure. Um So quickly put together a very quick um clip. Um So to follow up with what Anthony said, absolutely agree. The way I look at it is, I think cars are now going towards what the mobile used to be the um the iphone era. So we used to look at the Nokia 8800 and the Motor Love V Seven used to be super cool. I remember I, you know, um used to look at all these very cool stylized phones but then the the smartphone era really was when the iphone uh introduced sort of this intelligent experience through the apps and all that sort of hm I functions uh to connect all the life sort of lifestyle experiences into your pocket and then that kind of changed everything. And then the way I see it is Virginia, we're aiming to try to deliver almost like the iphone era of the automobile in terms of intelligent experience. And um to what Anthony mentioned about is a lot of the design now has becoming more uh simple. And I absolutely agree because um I just want to kind of clarify as for, for car design or for many other design to, to be simple is actually much harder. So it's not the word simple as in you're actually deleting all the context and all the contents. But how do you create something is so pure? Um That is less, is more but be able to deliver more with less. So the way we want to deliver is um before we design our products, we first think about what is our mission. One of the most valuable thing in any human's life is time. So time is something that we can never get back. Um And then how do we spend our time with our families? Our time commuting from work to home, from home to anywhere else is that we want to introduce the best user experience with the best autonomous driving technology utilizing, for instance, by this Apollo's L four Robotaxis technology into our vehicle, getting rid of all the hardware, but having the most pure design even getting rid of the traditional door handles or as you guys can see for the interior, we got rid of almost all the plastic buttons. And then we want to utilize the most natural interaction which is voice, you know, we talk to each other every day by having a natural conversation. So, using the A G I intelligent sort of, hm, I, you can just have any sort of command with the vehicle, like a robot and then the vehicle can open a door, close the door, come and pick you up from your house and then take you straight to work without you worrying about driving or the anxiety of driving. So you can actually spend more time talking to your friends, your family or just do whatever you want to do during that hour or two hour commute on a daily basis. And over the course of one day, one month, a year, five years, you get to accumulate so much time, that's so valuable in terms of that concept. So we're very, very proud to be able to uh aim to deliver that vision to the to the audience, right? I can see Chinese car makers are really at the frontier um of not only using clean energy but making cars not only just more stylish, more comfortable, but more intelligent. So I want to come back to, to you Antony. Now you're leading you the chief designer at B I AC bike, uh this huge state owned conglomerate uh which has like multi brands, multi series of models. What what is your uh your plan, your uh for this um gigantic car makers to um be able to compete, for example, with nimble um more, I mean, nimbler newcomers start up. Uh Like J Yeah, I think there, there are lots of uh I would say processes that are already kind of quite, quite working well and within by a group. Uh I think what, what I can bring in is, you know, things that uh maybe because of the speed um you, we cannot just always just be spontaneous and try to create something on sport. I think you need to be well prepared, you need to create a stronger design strategy. I think this strategy needs to kind of be also more extensive and not just looking at the identity or the the silhouette of a car or the shape of a car. I think this is maybe more of a more old school strategy that you design certain elements that you just keep replicating but um replicate them and but the I think strategy is is more about um you know how you can make with our three brands that cover, you know, Beijing is a four by four off road, has a strong four by four off road. Heritage Fox is relatively young. I think it's about seven years old uh EV or new energy brand. And then you we have also Stella which is we are aiming to compete in the luxury world, uh like Mercedes and, and, and BMW. So, so I think that they are very distinct brands. I think I would like to make sure that they have distinct character distinct offers, distinct user experiences and then create also a vision that can also help us, you know, into the next uh 56 years. Um You know, it's something different from how I used to work. I always used to think about 10 years and beyond. But I think now you have 18 months, 18 months, but you need the, the product will stay on the market for at least six years, 56 years. So you need to think of this kind of time span slightly differently. And I think that that's something I would like to do. And what do you think would be your biggest challenge? I mean, at this um cutting throat like competition. Yeah. Yeah, I, I think we, there's danger of being kind of mimic each other's success when you see a product or brand doing well, you try to do the same, but you are always two years behind. And so I think we have to have enough confidence as, as a, as a, you know, buy a group is, as you said, it's huge. It's been around for a long, long time since 1958. So I think we should have enough confidence to kind of do our own, uh have our own vision of products and experiences. And I think that will be a big challenge to kind of align maybe everyone in the company to, to want to go that way and sometimes perhaps dare to slow down a little bit. I fully agree. I think we, we don't need to introduce too products, maybe to do the right products for the right brand. I think that's something I believe strongly. Thank you very much for, I mean, the two gentlemen pushing the boundaries of auto design, not only just the style form and function and intelligence. Uh You have shown us how in the future of transportation looks like. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

Jamie Miller, Director of Biomimicry, SJ Group, In conversation with Nicholas Gordon, Fortune

Brainstorm Design 2024: Biomimicry in Architecture and Engineering

All right. So maybe let's start with, you know, obvious straightforward questions. What's the best way to understand what biomimicry is? Biomimicry is Velcro in the 19 forties, the Swiss engineer got fed up with birds sticking to his pants and his dog's hair and took his frustration into fascination to copy that hooking mechanism to make Velcro one of the most successful adhesives of our time. It's a wind turbine blade that copies a humpback whale fin and those bumps on the leading edge called tubac and applying that with applying it to a wind turbine blade, finding that that blade is 20% more efficient runs at slower wind speeds and it's quieter. So biomimicry is recognizing that nature has been designing for 3.8 billion years and in that time has figured out some really brilliant strategies to similar problems that we face. And then how are you using that those 3.8 billion years of, of design when it comes to architecture and buildings? The process of doing biomimicry quote unquote is, is to always start with what do you want your design to do instead of jumping into what you want to design take a moment and think, what is it that you're trying to achieve? And once you understand that function, you ask the natural world. So practical examples, we designed a building in India. We wanted it to be self cooling, we wanted to capture the monsoons and hold them. So our question was, how does nature self cool? We looked at termite mounds, we looked at elephant skin. Uh We looked at prairie dog holes and we learned from those metaphors, those strategies to make really simple uh design solutions. To give you a practical example of how it applied the elephant skin has this beautiful cracking kind of um facade. We'll call it uh I'll, I'll preface this by saying to you. I dropped out of biology. I hated biology. So I'm looking at it through an engineering lens. And what we realize is that those cracks, when an elephant blows water over its body, those cracks capture the moisture. And so it allows it to evaporative cool over a longer period of time. It's like a little protective area. So we designed this rock wall facade that's hooked up to the rain harvesting system, trickles water into the rocks and has that same kind of process that evaporative cools. It pulls the water off at a slow rate to passively cool the building. I mean, it's funny you mentioned that you dropped out of biology because in that case, like then how did you get started in this field in the first place. I mean, you like, how did you become an expert in this topic before then joining up with um SJ group? It, it started 20 years ago, I was uh an engineering student um in Canada, learning, learning engineering. And, and the whole time I had this feeling like there had to be a different way of doing things. I was being trained in a certain paradigm. So I took this elective called math and poetry. It was an hour and a half of math theorems and an hour and a half of poetry. It wasn't the synergy of the two. It was just, we studied math and then we studied poems. But in the math part, our professor was brilliant and at having us almost imagine like we're coming up with the theorems ourselves. And the one that stood out and kind of shifted my whole paradigm was the Fibonacci sequence. So it's a sequence of numbers that um when you play with them, you get the golden ratio and then you get that spiral. And that's where the professor got me. He once, once we saw this spiral, he said, where have you seen this before? And in that moment, I realized that spirals in the packaging of sunflower seeds, it's in the way that pine cones curl. It's in the way that you're, when you pull the plug in your bathtub, you get that vortex that spiral was ubiquitous in nature. And in that moment, I realized that nature could teach us about design. So up until that time, I had been learning to use math and science to engineer my environment. When in that moment, I learned that nature through math and science could teach us about how to design. Let's say 11 more definitions. Question, you know another one of the topics we're working on is regenerative design. It tell me more about kind of what, what you mean by that term when it comes to the built environment, I'll, I'll start by saying nature is naturally regenerative. So what I love about biomimicry and why it's so powerful is that these terms like circularity, regenerative design, passive design. Nature has already done it and biomimicry can inspire us to look at what can nature teach us to do next. And so regenerative design to me is, is really about recognizing that humans are natural. We're a natural species, our breast feeds trees, our bodies feed the soil. Why can't our buildings feed their ecosystem? So at some point in our history and our evolution as a species, we've diverted, we've diverged and that was what I really got excited about. My phd was wondering what made us so different. And so regenerative design is just coming back, adopting new paradigms, new principles so that we create systems that go way beyond doing less harm and are truly regenerative. So what does it actually mean when you're looking at a project, whether, you know, just a building or a larger area, what does it mean to, you know, to work with the natural world as opposed to against it or ignoring it? So this is a key part of our, our paradigms that we've, we've adopted is that in when we build the first phase of any design process starts in our imagination, it starts with our assumptions, our biases, how we think informs how we design. Some of the assumptions that you can see in our built environment is that we're separate from nature. We've designed incredible concrete systems that separate us from nature. We've also built on this paradigm that we can control or predict nature. Um And these aren't necessarily wrong. But what we've realized is that the more that we've grown, the more difficult it is to predict nature, the more expensive it is to fight nature. Nature wants to come in nature abhors gradients. And if I mean, the case study is, if we all left the city today, what would naturally happen is nature would take over. So the the thing about stopping to fight nature is learning from her principles, learning how to design in a way that allows nature to come in and allows us to kind of dance with nature, but let nature lead. Um So part of the reason why I think this, we're talking about this now is obviously there's climate change, climate change is made um sustainability environmental protection, a lot more present, I think in, in the minds of developers and designers. Um obviously, we're based here in Asia. A lot of our cities are threatened by climate change, extreme weather. I remember last year the really bad floods that happened in Hong Kong, like I've never seen floods that bad in Hong Kong ever. Um in my, in my 30 years of living there. Um So, you know, what would be your, your advice to developers and designers out here when it comes to biomimicry and regenerative design, you know, what should they be looking for? How should they be thinking about this problem? How should they be thinking about design in an age of climate change and extreme weather? Yeah, great question. We, we start all of our processes with something called the living story and, and what that means is we want to learn what the land wants to do, what it will support us in doing and what it will permit us to do and it gives us this unique lens to kind of like imagine what's the trajectory of that landscape? If we were not to touch it, if we weren't to do anything, what does Nature want to do and then to start to start to make design decisions based on that. So if nature wants to flood, the old paradigm or the engineering based resilience is try to fight that flood, but how big are berms going to be how much energy are we going to put into fighting it? There's a great project in Toronto where I'm from, where they designed in a wetland and designed all their buildings to flood. So it's a shift in the paradigm again where we're using ecological resilience and eco ecosystems don't fight environmental pressures. They kind of learn and adapt at, at, at multiple scales. So integrating new technology, digital um uh technology to learn what nature is doing to be more nuanced and then make adaptations in real time. Another example is like you think of your skin, my skin is responding differently here than it is here. So having that more locally attuned responsive design is a, is a key part of, of managing climate change, reintegrating uh natural phenomenon into our designs and doing it in a way that, you know, doesn't make us too uncomfortable and it's good. You mentioned the tech is like this isn't an anti tech thing at all. I mean, there's a lot of research that goes into new materials, new design processes, like what role are, you know, new technologies? And yes, here's the A I question, you know, what role is A I also playing in making these ideas more feasible. This is the brilliant thing about biomimicry is that it's a bridge, it's a bridge in so many ways. I work a lot with indigenous communities because it's providing me a bridge with some of their principles and thinking. But it's a bridge also uh in terms of historic technologies and future technologies. And what I mean by that is, you know, how do you harness when you do biomimicry, you come up with some pretty bold kind of metaphors. Like, what if this building could breathe like a lung or what if the skin of the building could breathe like skin when you have that metaphor? It's like, well, OK, how do you make that come to life? How do you do that? And that's when you start to look at the plethora of technologies that are available and see and you cherry pick the ones that help that metaphor come to life and, and become real. Um I do want to ask about, about your role, you know, you are the director of Biomimicry for SJ group, a big multinational construction and architecture firm. Why do you think a big firm like SJ group is investing time to make a director of biomimicry position? Um So in my journey, uh II I had a company and, and one of the, the, the companies within Sur Beard was my client and we built this relationship over time and really built out that biomimicry practice. But I think what SJ A did was they got on to that realization that like I said earlier, regenerative design, passive design circularity, all of those things already exist in nature. So, biomimicry is kind of this catch all and it's a way of looking at design and, and in a way, yeah, it's a way of looking at design that's like perpetually trying to copy and mimic nature. So I think they just saw a little bit ahead of their time because nature is also going to teach us what to do next. But the cool thing is is that um although I'm, I'm the first director, we are shortly followed by Microsoft who, how also has a director of biomimicry in the latest uh regenerative design report by Arup. It was co-written by a biomimicry expert. Uh We're seeing Perkins and will purchase a company that is very biomimetic. Um Jacobs Engineering has hired a bunch of biomimicry professionals. So the cool thing is is that we're seeing this uprising and this acknowledgement that nature is the only model of sustainability we have on this planet. We're a very young species. And so when you use biomimicry, you kind of put ourselves in our place and we can see that it can lead us for a long time. Um You know, I I I've seen some of the, some of the designs that you're putting out there that your team is putting out there. I think I saw the, was it the Hiway idea? It's like these Hexagons that are surrounding a bridge and it's a cool looking idea. One wonders if you talk to the construction, the guys, they'll be like, oh, sorry, boss like this. This is not, I mean, it's a cool idea but it's not going to work. I mean, how, I mean, do you ever have to feel like you have to compromise between, you know, there's this cool idea based off of natural ideas and then you try to work on it with the materials and the process that we have and it's not possible, like, do you ever have to compromise between those two things? Yeah. I mean, I guess there is compromise. The point of biomimicry is to push the paradigm. So you're going to come up with bold ideas. But the point of that is to develop, it's a development of believable ideas that might not yet be possible but, but provoke a conversation, what could be possible. But really, we don't try to compromise because I, I've seen in my time that the only limitation to, to the application of biomimicry is creativity, it's the creativity and how you abstract metaphors from nature, but also the creativity and how you can exploit or harness or use existing technologies to put, put that bold idea to life. And so, um no, I always think there's a solution. It's just a matter of finding it. And are there like smaller things that can be done with, with building projects? So not maybe like a a radical change but small tweaks that can be made to really kind of, you know, to make our buildings more efficient, better cooling, whatever you want them to do Yeah, there's, there's thousands of biomimicry technologies out there. I've been tracking them for 20 years. Um, you know, cool windows that copy, um, uh, spider silk that reduces bird collisions by 70%. You know, there's, um, uh, IOT technology that kind of matches all of your electrical systems and helps them communicate similar to bee, uh, bee hives and how bees communicate. So there's technologies you can use. Um, but, you know, if you want your, your building to circulate better, look at, you know, natural models, it's, it's there are so many ways you can apply biomimicry to an existing uh building or project. Um So I know you've had to work with kind of many, many designers over the world, kind of telling them how biomimicry works. But you know what's kind of the one piece of advice or the one way of thinking about this issue that you'd give to an up and coming designer that wants to start looking into the space, applying some of these natural techniques in the design work they're doing. So there's two things I'll say. First of all, biomimicry is very simple. Um Maybe I'll start with this. It's just, it's essentially a lens that when you adopt this lens, your whole world will change. So I'm going to invite you to just close your eyes for a second or just imagine a forest in your brain. That forest has ancient elders that have long lasted climate change. Towers that are moving fluids up hundreds of feet without electricity, collecting solar energy. With these materials that use a subset of periodic table of elements. Water based chemistry, these leaves are built in benign manufacturing. They fall into a circular economy. Those trees are communicating with each other through underground networks and tunnels through their mycelium. When you start to see that nature is doing chemistry, engineering design, you start to realize that there's a whole world out there. And to practically do biomimicry, there's two things I'll say one is to go back to that function. Whenever you have a design challenge, just ask, how would nature do that function? And then the second part is I like to break biomimicry up into form based biomimicry, which is copying shapes in nature to achieve a function process based biomimicry is manufacturing or behaving that's like the termite mound example. Um And then systems based biomimicry, which is where I love to play. And that's when you start to learn the subtleties of, of nature. And you start to learn the brushstrokes. It's like imagining the natural world this beautiful piece of art. And we've been asked to add to it. And over hundreds of years, we've been scribbling on that piece of art. But if we learn those brushstrokes, we can add to it, we can learn the nuances of the artist and build to the beauty. All right. So with that contemplated image, um I'd like to kind of. Thank you so much, Jamie for kind of introducing us this idea and all the cool techniques, materials technologies that are coming out from looking at the natural world. So everyone, please. Thank Jamie. Thank you very much.

Arin Bhowmick, Chief Design Officer, SAP, Dan Makoski, Former Chief Design Officer, UnitedHealth Group, Greg Petroff, Former Chief Design Officer, Cisco Security, Victoria Spaulding-Burford, VP Product Design, Salesforce (virtual), Gordon Ching, Founder and CEO, Design Executive Council

Brainstorm Design 2024: The Customer Connection

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