Richard Jefferson is a molecular biologist, social entrepreneur, inventor, open information systems proponent and innovation system strategist. He founded Cambia almost 30 years ago, as a means to democratize science-enabled innovation. He works on “Solving the Problem of Problem Solving”
In this series of episodes, Richard talks about his journey into molecular biology, social entrepreneurship, and innovation for societal as well as globally beneficial impact.
In the 1980’s, he started a biological open-source movement and later, the Biological Open Source (BiOS) Initiative, which was the world’s first patent-based commons. He founded The Lens 20 years ago and today, it is the world’s largest free, open and secure platform of science and technology knowledge that enables new and different people and institutions to solve critical problems, ‘Informed by Evidence, Inspired by Imagination’. The Lens Collective Action Project builds bridges and removes roadblocks to all innovators.
As a scientist, he developed enabling technologies; reporter gene systems (e.g. GUS), and microbial, plant, biomedical technologies. He did the first field release of a transgenic food crop (1987), and worked extensively in life sciences and agricultural innovation in Asia, Africa & Latin America with the FAO, the CGIAR and the Rockefeller Foundation.
As a fellow of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, Richard Jefferson participates in many World Economic Forum events, including many times as a panelist and speaker at Davos and other meetings of the WEF, and was for four years on the Global Agenda Council for Intellectual Property, and four more on the Global Agenda Council on the Economics of Innovation.
His specialties: Social Enterprise, Patent Informatics, Climate Change, Open Access, Open Licensing, Innovation Policy, Innovation System Reform, Molecular Biology, Microbiomes, Plant Biotechnology, Agriculture, Global Development, Food Security, Enabling Technology, Complex Biological Systems, Evolution and the Hologenome. (Source: Richard Jefferson’s LinkedIn profile)
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