Endophyte Club: Amsterdam was hosted by Hackers & Designers Summer Academy, 2017: On & Off the Grid.
ON AND OFF THE GRID
What if biotechnology was hackable and accessible to all? It wouldn’t need to be anything fancy, just groups of hobbyists experimenting with what they might do with biology that is interesting. Just like in the early days of computing most biotechnology happens in large laboratories, and the experiments that are pursued are chosen because they are deemed to be profitable or worthy. And just like in computing, the early purveyors of mainframes as profit boxes or war machines missed the future as it oozed in the society around them.
The Rare Endophyte Collectors Club is an attempt to do something interesting biotechnology off the grid with hobbyists and curiosity. What are the microbes that live inside of plants, how do they act, and what might they do if we moved them over there instead? We are not making any promises, but endophytes might be useful as BioFertilizers and BioPesticides. That could help reduce our need to live on the industrial chemical grid.
Getting off the grid means creating a new infrastructure for doing biology, agriculture and food that does not require petrochemical inputs and revitalizes the soils, water and air that surround us. But it starts with a new of seeing the world. Looking for endophytes is a new of seeing.