Mission Statement
Ours is but a ‘Small Blue Dot’ is the Universal scheme of things. If thinking on geological timescales, humans amount to a mere footnote. However, within the scope of our existence we can craft beautiful, inspired, and extra-ordinary things. Exploring how is my life’s work.
Biography
Melissa Sterry is a globally recognised scientist, designer, strategist, and futurist specialising in sustainable innovation, biodesign, and resilience. Founder of several internationally acclaimed first-to-market start-ups and other seminal initiatives, she pioneers unprecedented nature-inspired design solutions to highly complex environmental challenges. With 25+ years board-level experience and qualifications including a PhD in designing ecomimetic architectural, urban, and peri-urban resilience to major wildfires, she advises market-leading companies and agencies on cutting-edge sustainability, innovation, and development strategies. Chartered with the Science Council, she is a member of the Design Council’s expert network, and fellow of the Design Research Society and the Institute of Science and Technology. Her expertise in design science, complexity, biotechnology, biomimetics, and ecological systems thinking positions her as an international thought leader in natural hazard resilience, climate adaptation, and ecological design. Seasoned in several inter-related fields and sectors, she has copious creative and technical credentials to her name, inc. more than a dozen national and international creativity, innovation, and enterprise awards, publication in over 60 international titles, coverage in over 450 more, and over 100 invited keynotes across 40 cities and four continents.
Questionnaire
Where do you want to foster change and why?
Some of the most compelling concepts emerge at the interface of fields. My work is, and always has been between spaces, disciplines, and communities. So for me, it’s not ‘where’ I want to foster change, but how. More specifically, how we translate and exchange information, insight, and ideas, such that we can find new solutions to sometimes old problems.
What or who influenced you during your professional career?
Life. Because, many of the challenges faced by humanity have already been solved by other species.
We all have those significant moments or situations (success or failure); which one was yours, and what did you learn from it?
Not one, but many ancient civilisations explored the concept of creative destruction. In my experience success and failure are not disparate events. Sometimes, indeed often, one leads to the other. So much so, that without some failures, some successes would never have occurred.