What To Expect

Every immersion workshop is tailored to the local ecosystem, ensuring each day is brimming with content and exploration. You should plan to clear your agenda and fully immerse yourself in the biomimicry experience! From our home base of Lenar Farms in northern Slovenia at the heart of the Kamnik-Savinja Alps, we’ll explore the Logar Valley with its beautiful meadows and high mountain spruce forests. We’ll be mentored by golden eagles and chamois as we hike the rocky slopes, and explore waterfalls and caves as we reflect on the endurance of nature’s genius. It makes for a jam-packed seven days of full-on, biomimicry-based exploration. Click below to get an inside look at one of our immersion workshops.

Over the course of the workshop, our expert biomimicry instructors will teach participants to:

Practice applying biomimicry thinking toward individual and team challenges
Define leadership challenges for which nature’s examples can best provide solutions
Re-imagine organizational leadership, strategy, planning, and operations with inspiration from healthy and evolving ecosystems
Conduct an audit of an organization or social-change endeavor using thriving ecosystems as a guide
Apply the biomimicry process to model teams and organizations after healthy and evolving ecosystems and to become skillful at adaptive change
Be part of a diverse learning network guiding the growth of biomimetic applications for organizational development and social innovation
Apply design lessons from nature that can help grow resilient organizations and foster a regenerative society

PREVIEW AGENDA

DISCOVER NATURE'S GENIUS FOR SOCIAL INNOVATION

What can you expect to experience while you Discover Nature’s Genius for Social Innovation in Slovenia? Here’s a preview of what each day will include:

Day 1: Meet the group at the Ljubljana International airport for the shuttle to Lenar Farm. Settle in at the farm and spend the afternoon getting oriented to biological wonders of the Logar Valley while getting to know your fellow participants. We’ll provide an overview of how organizational leadership, strategy, planning and operations can draw inspiration from healthy, evolving ecosystems.

Day 2: With the first full day at Lenar Farm, you’ll be introduced to the Biomimicry Thinking tools and methodology. Immerse yourself in the new skills as you meet the species in the Logar Valley. Practice seeing with your new biomimicry lenses.

Day 3: Begin honing your observation skills during exploration of the spruce forest. Explore life’s resilience strategies in a flowering meadow while connecting with Life’s Principles, a Biomimicry 3.8 tool that summarizes the rules for how life survives and thrives on Earth, and how our organizations and systems might too.

Day 4: Deepen your understanding of Life’s Principles as we explore the forest, watching for rare lilies, orchids, gentians, ibex, and chamois. Regroup back at the farm and discuss the experience of abstracting Life’s Principles in the field. After dinner, we’ll look to apply those lessons through an ecosystem-audit of your own organization or social-change endeavor.

Day 5: We’ll explore an Ice Age cave for lessons on endurance, as we look to apply design lessons to help grow resilient organizations and foster a regenerative society. We’ll practice applying lessons to model teams and organizations to become skillful at adaptive change. Spend the evening sharing your team’s design ideas inspired by the day’s discoveries.

Day 6: New lessons await as we explore Alpine vegetation and discuss as a group the dynamics of change in nature. After lunch, spend the rest of the day on a continued journey of discovery into your selected biological phenomena and share with the group what you’ve learned and what ideas it has inspired. Give thanks to the wisdom found in this rich biome and celebrate the final evening of the workshop with the group!

Day 7: On the final day, reflections on building the diverse learning network of practitioners of biomimicry in social innovation provides a wrap-up. We’ll close the workshop after lunch for you to head back to the airport… or stay in Slovenia to continue traveling–either way, the next biomimicry adventure awaits!

Instructors

Dr. Dayna Baumeister Biomimicry 3.8 Co-Founder Dr. Dayna Baumeister is a world-renowned biomimicry lecturer and consultant as well as the Director of the Biomimicry Professional Certificate Program and co-director of The Biomimicry Center at ASU. With a background in biology, a devotion to applied natural history, and a passion for sharing the wonders of nature with others, Dayna has worked in the field of biomimicry with business partner Janine Benyus since 1998 as a business catalyst, educator, researcher, and design consultant. As a workshop leader, she will share her 18+ years of experience bringing biological intelligence to a wide range of audiences as well as her visionary leadership for the meme.

Toby Herzlich Biomimicry for Social Innovation Founder Toby Herzlich is a leadership trainer, master facilitator, certified Biomimicry Specialist, and the founder of Biomimicry for Social Innovation. Toby is committed to the creation of a just, healthy, and regenerative society, and heartfully enthused about the transformative potential of applying nature’s wisdom to humanity’s sustainability aspirations. With more than 25 years of facilitation experience, she is a Senior Trainer with the Rockwood Leadership Institute, co-founder of Cultivating Women’s Leadership, and a consultant to organizations such as the Sierra Club and the AgroEcology Fund. She finds much of her purpose in catalyzing diverse networks of social change innovators, including the Young Climate Leaders, and intends to germinate a co-evolving network of leaders using nature’s intelligence as guidance and inspiration.

Registration and Deadlines

The all-inclusive price for the workshop includes delicious, organic and locally harvested breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks; overnight accommodations for six nights; all activities during the week; course materials; group transportation between the Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport (LJU) and the venue; and administration costs. The price varies based on the rooming type you select. All rooming types are limited and first come, first served. See photos of the farm and rooms on the Lenar Farm website.

Shared Double | $3,500 USD The majority of the room options are a shared room with an attached shared bathroom.

Private Room | $3,750 USD There are a limited number of private rooms.

Discounts All discounts have limited availability, are offered on a first-come, first-serve basis, and may not be combined.

Student discount: Enrolled university students save $250. Must upload a copy of current student ID upon registration.
Biomimicry Global Network member discount: Members of a local Biomimicry Global Network save $250. Must upload brief, written endorsement from local network leader upon registration.
Group Discounts Thinking of sending your team? Take advantage of our group discounts. If 3 or more participants from the same organization registers, we can offer a tuition discount of 10% off each registration, 4 or more 15% off, 6 or more 20%.

Deadlines Online registration forms must be completed by April 1, 2019. Deposit due with registration. All instructions and pricing information is included within the registration form. Late registration will be accepted through May 10, 2019, pending availability.

Convince your boss by downloading and sharing our new PDF that outlines the professional benefits and values biomimicry immersion workshops can add to any organization. Download Convince Your Boss pdf here.

Discover Nature’s Genius for Social Innovation