In this final breakout session of SynBioBeta 2025, a distinguished panel of bio designers and thinkers explores the intersection of culture, technology, and storytelling in shaping the future. Moderated by Fiona Mischel the discussion delves into the background of each panelist and covers topics including responsible technology design, the role of storytelling in innovation, and the untapped wisdom of indigenous cultures. Panelists include Mickey McManus, Kit McDonald, David Sun Kong, Sophia Wang, and John Sundman– each bringing unique perspectives from their fields. The conversation also addresses pressing issues like consumerism, climate change, and the potential for technology to foster or hinder societal progress. Join us for a thought-provoking dialogue that encourages a shift from consumer to steward mindset, and challenges us to consider how we might foster trust and relational science to navigate our shared future.
A few of the folks and books mentioned during the conversation?
Marshall Ganz and the Power of Story, Drew Endy, Herman Hauser, Elenor Ostrom & the prosocial movement, John Sundman’s writing, a curious study done using a massive multiplayer game, Mycoworks, Indigenous Wisdom, LanzaTech, How to Grow Almost Anything, The Nature of Technology, Andrew Hessel, and the Spirit of Asilomar.
Special thanks to Thatcher Mines for capturing this lively and essential discussion!
Still here? Well just for fun I asked Claude to take the transcript and make a simple interactive visualization of the key concepts and how they relate to each other. That took about an hour. Then I thought, ok let me challenge Gemini to take that artifact from Claude and write a mini web app that can synchronize the video and the diagram so you scan scrub through the video or diagram and see concepts emerging.
You can scroll the time slider forward and back to see when the concept appears in the discussion and click on the little plus or minus icons on a given meta concept to hide or show nested concepts that relate. You can also drag stuff around if it’s too hard to read a given word or see the connection.