The BiOS Initiative: Biological Open Source, Patent Informatics and
Distributive Innovation in the Real World
OR
Building a LAMP Stack for Life Sciences

It is commonplace to regard health crises, sickness, malnutrition, famine and
natural resource collapse as overwhelming problems of our world, typically
associated with poverty.
Rather, they are symptoms of a more fundamental failing in how we deal with the
world, and to whom we give the tools to engage. Four billion poor people are not
just a problem, they are world's greatest resource for problem solving. What we
lack are the norms, the tools and the mechanisms to harness and empower their
commitment, their drive, their local knowledge and their creativity. But this is
within our grasp.
This presentation outlines the real origins of Open Source - not the recent
phenomenon in software development, but the very foundation of all of
civilization: plant and animal domestication and breeding. Virtually every key
element of productive, economically savvy Open Source innovation was
developed and presaged by millennia of plant breeders and farmers who created
the wealth upon which society is based. The engine room of civilization has
been agriculture, but the fuel has been shared innovation.
Perhaps the most powerful development in human society has been the
articulation and honing of the scientific method. Its power to acquire true
information, morph it into knowledge, build and test hypothesis rapidly and create
a robust platform for progress is unprecedented in history. But as this power
grew, so did our mechanisms to own, control and restrict it. As with the clergy of
the middle ages, science and those who enclose it have built self-perpetuating
temples of wealth and power which leave countless people and problems
marginalized.
The tools to change this are at hand. The revolutions in informatics,
communications, life sciences can and must now be matched by revolutions is
the democratization of scientific problem solving and its incorporation into
business and the creation of wealth - not solely the accumulation of wealth.
Big business in pharmaceuticals, food and other biological innovation spaces
operates under antiquated business models that do not clearly distinguish
between the tools of innovation and their products.
The problem is not solely multinational corporations gaming the patent system
and the associated business practices. It is also the failure of public sector to
engage creatively with their responsibilities.
It’s also how the patent system has evolved (if indeed we can grace such an
accretion of carbuncles with that glorious biological process) and how business
practices and models are groaning under the weight of its excesses. Modern
informatics has enormous potential to parse and integrate this information so that
anyone can understand and appreciate the landscape upon which innovation
must operate, and can guide new business models that use shared and
accessible tools to create myriad applications, products and services.
Completely new approaches to inclusive problem solving can be and have been
created. Amongst its other work, the BiOS Initiative has integrated patent
analysis with targeted work-beyonds to create and distribute toolsets that can
lead science in new directions, and change society's view of who can solve
problems. For instance, the concept of Bioindicators: using modern genetics to
forge heuristics - allowing plants to be engineered as instruments so farmers
worldwide will have more and better information to guide the local innovative
capability. This can create zero-cost instruments, built from modular, open
source components to allow environmental measurements and action.
The LAMP Stack for life sciences is not just a techno-dream, but a social
entrepreneur's imperative. With the creation of the BiOS "Apollo Project" we
expect a new age of biological innovation, with social justice alongside new
creative science-based business.

The pdf version of this abstract and companying video can be find from this link:
http://www.cambia.org/daisy/cambia/g2/1196/2960.html