Today it is difficult to believe that around the turn of the 20th century people in our government were considering doing away with the patent office because "Everything that could be invented has already been invented".
That was a silly supposition. Since then even an avid reader finds it impossible to keep up with what's being invented in all areas of our culture. The daily newspaper doesn't even cover much that is newsworthy. Let's look at just a few intriguing items as examples.
FASHION STATEMENT: Elizabeth Esponnette, an assistant professor of product design at the University of Oregon, has made a jacket out of sprouted chia seeds and muslin, a filmy gown from hot glue and water and a cocktail dress composed of alum salt crystals, which actually grew into form. In explanation she stated, "By calling on nature, and making clothing that will biodegrade and become something else, I'm trying to allude to the need for a circular process in manufacturing, instead of a linear process that ends with things being thrown out."
She envisions a completely different world where clothing could be made to order on a 3-D printer building items straight from yarn, with no waste. She has proved the technology works, even though she has no products yet. Further, she is working with 3-D printers to come up with ways that a person's bodily measurements could be transferred directly to the printer, ensuring excellent fit and no-seams strength.
(Story courtesy of Oregon Quarterly, winter 2016 issue, written by Rosemary Howe Camozzi.)
FUTURE NEIGHBORHOODS: Residents of the soon-to-be ReGen Village in Amsterdam's outskirts will live in a self-sufficiency closed-loop system, meeting most of its needs, like energy, food and waste management - from within. It will include glass greenhouses for growing its own food, for instance. The project mastermind is California developer James Ehrlich.
When Copenhagen entrepreneur Kim Loudrup couldn't find affordable student housing for his son, he (along with Danish architect Bjarke Ingels) built a 15-apartment complex on a floating base in the harbor, made from modular shipping containers. They rent for $600 each.
One of New York City's most popular parks has been built on an abandoned elevated train track. Now James Ramsey and Dan Barasch are spearheading a project to build a $10 million, 60,000 square foot, plant-packed public park 20 feet below the city's traffic-clogged streets. Aluminum and glass super conductors will harness and redirect sunlight to a distribution point via fibre-optic cables, then a "solar canopy" of aluminum panels will distributes the sun's rays.
(Stories in Fast Company Magazine, Feb. 2017.)
HOMELIKE HOSPITALITY: Innovations can be quite simple, like Airbnb. Brian Chesky took the idea that people would like to stay in private homes during their travels in foreign countries and those homeowners would like the money this would bring them. The company, in ten years, has more than 2 million listings and a valuation of $25.5 billion, making it the largest "hotel" chain in the world. Airbnb collects 15% from every booking from guests and hosts. Chesky is 35 years old and reportedly worth over $3 billion!
PATENTED MOUSE: The oncomouse made both scientific and legal history when it became the first transgenic mammal to be granted a U.S. patent. It helps meet a need for animal models to study cancer - how it forms and spreads in living tissue - in intact organisms rather than cell lines in petri dishes. Patent #
CROWD CAPITALISM: Inventors and innovators since 2009 have had a huge advantage over those in earlier generations: crowd funding. That's where an idea for a product or business is floated by an online crowdfunding app and people who are interested in seeing it realized, and perhaps sharing hoped-for largesse, contribute funds. Early apps included Indiegogo, Kickstarter, Rockethub and Quirky.
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