Nina Jensen

Nina Jensen is the CEO of REV Ocean and is a tireless champion for promoting environmentally responsible solutions for the world's ocean. She started this position in 2018 after 15 years of positive impact in WWF-Norway (as Secretary-General since 2012). Nina holds a Master’s degree in Marine Biology from the University of Fishery Science in Tromsø, and has a background in communications and marketing from Ogilvy & Mather. Nina is a board member of The Business for Peace Foundation, The Technology for Ocean (C4IR Ocean) Foundation, The Brain Tumour Association, Ocean Wise, Aker Offshore Wind, Aker CarbonCapture and Project Energy PER-A. She was named Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2014. She is also on the Executive Board of Norway’s Polytechnic Society, and part of Friends of Ocean Action and an advisor to the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy.

3 words to describe Nature?

Life. Support. System

3 things Nature taught you?

What makes life worth living

Nature always finds a way

Human nature is the most destructive force of nature

3 most treasured Nature spots?

Lofoten islands

Sipadan Island

Madagascar

When you look at the OCEAN, it makes you feel...?

Happy

When you see a FOREST, it makes you feel...?

Relaxed

When you see a VOLCANO, it makes you feel...?

Excited

When you see a SUNRISE or SUNSET, it makes you feel...?

At peace

When you hear THUNDER, it makes you feel...?

Alive

When you hear the WIND HOWLING, it makes you feel...?

Small

Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?

Ocean😊

On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?

10

Share with us a childhood nature memory?

My favourite childhood activity was swimming and snorkelling in the kelp forest, exploring the amazing beauty and wonders of our ocean and always discovering something new. It was a very welcome escape from the hectic city life in Oslo, where I grew up.


Yancey Strickler

Yancey Strickler is a writer and entrepreneur. He is the cofounder and former CEO of Kickstarter, author of This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World, and the creator of Bentoism. Yancey has been recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People. He cofounded the artist resource The Creative Independent and the record label eMusic Selects. Yancey grew up in Clover Hollow, Virginia, and began his career as a music critic in New York City. The London Spectator called him "one of the least obnoxious tech evangelists ever."

3 words to describe Nature?

Shhhwwwwwwww (wind through the trees)

tckltckltckltckltckl (leaves on the ground)

grglgrglgrglgrgl (water falling from a rocky cave)

3 things Nature taught you?

How to hide

What it means to be healthy

The upside of death

3 most treasured Nature spots?

Canopied forests with pine needles on the ground

Any beach

The farm where I grew up 

When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?

Infinite

When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?

Taller

When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?

Side-eyed

When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?

Like a George Harrison song

When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?

Five years old

When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?

Small

Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?

E) All of the above

On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?

10

Share with us a childhood nature memory?

Age twelve waiting for the bus when a deer, wounded by a hunter's bullet, came staggering out of the woods and collapsed across the street from me. I stayed with it and spoke with it until its eyes went blank.

 


Enric Sala

photo credit Manu San Félix

Dr. Enric Sala is a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence dedicated to restoring the health and productivity of the ocean. His more than 120 scientific publications are widely recognized and used for real-world conservation efforts such as the creation of marine reserves. Enric is currently working to help protect the last pristine marine ecosystems worldwide, and to develop new business models for marine conservation. He founded and leads National Geographic’s Pristine Seas, a project that combines exploration, research, and media to inspire country leaders to protect the last wild places in the ocean. To date, Pristine Seas has helped to create 13 of the largest marine reserves on the planet, covering an area of over 4.5 million square kilometers.

Enric has received many awards including 2008 Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, 2013 Research Award from the Spanish Geographical Society, 2013 Lowell Thomas Award from the Explorers Club, and a 2013 Hero Award from the Environmental Media Association. He is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Enric’s experience and scientific expertise contributes to his service on advisory boards of international organizations and governments.

3 words to describe Nature? 

Life. Support. System

3 things Nature taught you? 

Magic

Wonder

Purpose

3 most treasured Nature spots? 

Millennium Atoll (Kiribati)

Volcanoes National Park (Rwanda)

Any ancient forest 

When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...? 

Infinite 

When you see a forest, it makes you feel...? 

Blessed

When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...? 

Amazed

When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...? 

Alive

When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...? 

Humble

When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...? 

It depends if I’m on land or at sea! I prefer not to hear that when I’m at sea.

Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person? 

All of them, even though my work has been mostly on oceans

On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being? 

10

Share with us a childhood nature memory? 

First time I saw a starfish in the Mediterranean of my childhood while I was doing my first attempts at snorkeling. It was the most beautiful thing I saw, and memory that still lives with me.

 


Miki Agrawal

Miki Agrawal was named 2018 Fast Company’s “Most Creative People”, 2017 “Young Global Leader” by World Economic Forum, “Social Entrepreneur of the Year” by the World Technology Summit, “Top 20 millennials on a mission” by Forbes, and was one of INC Magazine’s “Most Impressive Women Entrepreneurs of 2016.” That year, she made the cover of both Entrepreneur Magazine and Crain’s Magazine. She is the recipient of the Tribeca Innovation Award and was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in Brooklyn Culture in 2017 by the Brooklyn Magazine.

She co-founded THINX, a high-tech, period-proof underwear brand and led the company as CEO to a valuation of over $150 Million and to Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies of 2017, all while helping tens of millions of women period better.

She also founded TUSHY, a company that is revolutionizing the American toilet category with a modern, affordable, designer bidet attachment that both upgrades human health & hygiene as well as the environment from wasteful toilet paper consumption. She and her team are also helping fight the global sanitation crisis by bringing clean latrines to underserved communities in India through their partnership with Samagra. SNL covered TUSHY after its subway campaign was banned. Watch the clip here.

She is the founder of the acclaimed farm-to-table, alternative pizza concept called WILD with 3 locations in New York City, one in Guatemala and more on the way.

Additionally, Harper Collins published her first book entitled "DO COOL SH*T" on entrepreneurship and lifestyle design. Hay House published her second book “Disrupt-Her”.

3 words to describe Nature?

Alive. Present. Symbiotic

3 things Nature taught you?

That we are tiny specs of dust that are here for a short amount of time, so we must add more to nature than take away from it. 

3 most treasured Nature spots?

The Catskills

My backyard garden

Redwood forest in California 

When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel…?

Ever-present

When you see a forest, it makes you feel…?

Meditative 

When you see a volcano, it makes you feel…?

Powerful 

When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel…?

Rejuvenated 

When you hear thunder, it makes you feel…?

Energetic 

When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel…?

Alive 

Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person? 

Forest 

On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being? 

10 

Share with us a childhood nature memory? 

Going camping in Stowe with my family and climbing Mt Orford at 3 years old and feeling very accomplished :-)

 


Daan Roosegaarde

Dutch artist and innovator Daan Roosegaarde is a creative thinker and maker of social designs which explore the relation between people, technology, and space.

Roosegaarde has been driven by nature's gifts like light emitting fireflies and jellyfish since an early age. His fascination for nature and technology is reflected in his iconic works such as SMOG FREE PROJECT (the largest outdoor air purifier which turns smog into jewellery) and VAN GOGH PATH (bicycle path which glows at night).

Roosegaarde studied Fine Arts and graduated from The Berlage Institute in Rotterdam with a Master in architecture. He founded Studio Roosegaarde in 2007, where he works with his team of designers and engineers towards a better future.

Roosegaarde has been the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including the London Design Innovation Medal, the INDEX Design Award, DFA Gold and Grand Award Hong Kong, LIT 2017 Lighting Designer of the Year Award, Platinum A'Design Award 2017, D&AD Awards 2017, Core77 Design Awards 2017, Dutch Artist of the Year 2016, the World Technology Award, two Dutch Design Awards, the Charlotte Köhler Award, and China's Most Successful Design Award. He exhibited at the Design Museum London, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Tate Modern, Tokyo National Museum, Le Musée des Arts Décoratifs Paris, Victoria & Albert Museum, and various public spaces across the globe.

Through lectures across the world Daan frequently shares his visionary ideas and projects.

Daan Roosegaarde has been selected by Forbes and Good 100 as a creative change maker and a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum. He is currently a visiting professor at Tongji University in Shanghai.

3 words to describe Nature?

Experience

Knowledge

Surrender

3 things Nature taught you?

The Art of Communication

Beauty is evolution

Harmony - everything has a purpose

3 most treasured Nature spots?

Night diving in Bali

Watching Northern Lights in Norway

In some bizarre way, looking at snowflakes under a microscope!

When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel…?

Curious and hungry for knowledge. The ocean is a pool of knowledge we understand so little

When you see a forest, it makes you feel…?

Humble and fascinated. All these trees that communicate with each other! All this information stored and shared. The forest exemplifies beauty and communication into one.

When you see a volcano, it makes you feel…?

Puzzled and mystified. What can we do with the hidden energy. There is so much power, so much potential.

When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?

Aware of our relationship with the universe. A sense of movement that is beyond us.

When you hear thunder, it makes you feel…?

Excited! This explosion of energy, this release of pure power.

When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?

Cold. Brings me back to these long cold Dutch nights when were working on developing sail prototypes, how to harvest the energy from the wind.

Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?

I was ocean, but recently, after being in Dubai, I have become a desert person.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?

8 on a personal level. But our society should be a 10, in a way that our creative and engineering should be based on the way nature does it, like Biomimicry. Nature has so much to teach us. We have so much to learn from it.

Share with us a childhood nature memory?

I was night diving in Indonesia when suddenly all these creatures started to produce light. We work so hard at creating light, spending so much energy and material so that we can illuminate our lives. And here were these simple organisms emitting so much light in a way that was natural and effortless. It was so humbling! We have so much to learn from Nature.