Eric Berlow teaches: Maximizing Collective Impact of Funding for Tackling Systemic Problems
Session Overview
This Solutions-in-Practice session explores how to operationalize a systems approach to tackling a complex, multi-causal problem. Eric Berlow will introduce his work at Vibrant Data Labs, which focuses on using data to help increase the collective impact of funding directed towards the climate solutions ecosystem. Participants will learn how data can be used to support evidence-based decisions for directing resources toward under-funded solutions that fill critical gaps and have ripple effects on adjacent challenges.
Learning Goals
Systems Approach to Funding: Understand how systems-thinking can be applied to funding decisions to prioritize solutions that increase collective impact.
Complementarity: Learn how to go beyond traditional ‘Impact Metrics’ to maximize the complementarity of efforts within an interdependent system of solutions.
Mind the Gaps: Explore strategies to identify under-funded critical gaps within solution ecosystems to ensure that no critical part is neglected.
Collaborative Funding: Discuss the importance of collaboration among different types of capital to support systems of solutions with collective impact.
About Eric Berlow
Dr. Eric L. Berlow, academically trained in ecology and complexity science, is currently the CEO of Vibrant Data Labs – a social impact data science company building open-source tools to amplify the collective impact of funding for climate change solutions.
Eric previously co-founded a visual data interface company which was acquired by Rakuten; and was the founding director of the University of California’s first science institute in Yosemite National Park. There he co-led efforts to leverage data and computation for evidence-based ecological conservation.
Eric received a B.A. in Biology from Brown University and a PhD in Community Ecology from Oregon State University. His research on ecological complexity – which includes publications in Nature, Science, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences – has been recognized among the top 1% most highly cited papers in the field.
Eric has been an Emerson Collective Climate Fellow, a TED Fellow and TED Senior Fellow, an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, a National Science Foundation Fellow, and a GE Architects of Innovation Fellow. He was listed among the “Top 100 Creatives” by Origin Magazine and was named an “Agent of Impact” by ImpactAlpha for his work tracking private climate finance.
How to Join
Eric Berlow teaches in our Foundations Course which runs for 15 weeks three or four times a year. This course is designed to turn you into a regenerative climate leader and equip you with practical, science-based regenerative solutions to our climate emergency and polycrisis.
Scholarships and discounts are available: apply directly here.