2025-03-16 –, Main Stage
TBC
Dr. Stuart Cowan is the Executive Director of the Buckminster Fuller Institute, which is dedicated to the realization of Fuller’s vision of a world that works for 100% of humanity in the shortest time possible through spontaneous cooperation. In this role, he launched the BFI Design Lab to support commons-based initiatives to strategically address critical planetary challenges including climate, biodiversity, water cycles, and financial systems. Stuart brings 25 years of experience in regenerative design, finance, and systems and is a planetary strategist, ecological designer, systems scientist, and regenerative economist. He was the founding convener of the Regenerative Communities Network from 2018-20, supporting 15 bioregions on their journeys of regeneration. He served as Chief Scientist at the Smart Cities Council, Transaction Manager for the sustainable investment fund Portland Family of Funds, and Conservation Economy Research Director at the non-profit Ecotrust. He is the co-author with Sim Van der Ryn of Ecological Design (Island Press, 2007), and received his doctorate in Applied Mathematics from U.C. Berkeley with a focus on Complex Systems and Ecological Economics. He has taught and facilitated internationally for academic institutions, cities, companies, indigenous groups, government agencies, and NGOs. He also serves on the Board of Regenerosity, Global Solutions Alliance, and University for International Cooperation.
I am an ecologist, designer, activist, artist, herbalist, and technologist working at the forefront of climate change and ecological crisis. I design and build places, products, and systems of human coordination that restore ecosystem function.
I am the founder of ArtEcology is a multidisciplinary collective of climate designers working to restore ecology. Explore our work with nature preserves, climate impact platforms, biodiversity credits, governance, ecological conscious and animism narratives at artecology.studio.
My current work includes park curation and biodiversity credit architecture for Antilles Reserve in Barbados, climate finance design for BioFi Project bioregional financing pilots, and I am the COO of a crypto startup, LayerLabs.
I was a co-founder of Regen Network, a blockchain platform to regenerate landscapes. As a city park designer I led the redesign of 1,000 acres of public lands in Pittsburgh, including the USA’s largest urban farm, Hilltop Urban Farm. I am a co-designer of the Food Studies certificate program at Indiana University Bloomington, co-author of the Pittsburgh Climate Action Plan and Greater Pittsburgh Food Action Plan, co-founder of the North American Permaculture Convergence, and co-conspirator of the Occupy Wall Street Sustainability Working Group. I have raised over $47 million in funding for ecosystem restoration projects.
My institutional training includes finance and marketing degrees from University of Delaware and sustainable design training from the Fashion Institute of New York. My extitutional training includes Center for Bioregional Living (permaculture), Northeast School of Botanical Medicine (herbalism), and ecology, permaculture, and herbalism training from Darrel Frey, Peter Bane, Andrew Faust, 7Song, Juliet Blankespoor, and Luke Learningdeer, as well as hundreds of grassroots herbalists and permaculture designers.
I believe that interdependency consciousness can shift the trajectory of the climate and ecological crisis.