Introduction

Although language, in the form we know it, seems to be a human characteristic, it has been shown that plants and animals also communicate with each other and with us. How can we understand what is being said? How do we translate the signals sent?

The program

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The GENEVA FORUM invites you to propose your solutions in this field.

Human beings can already communicate with each other to exchange knowledge and information. The next step is to establish effective means of communication with animals and plants. The benefits would be numerous:

• Identifying and understanding their needs;
• Understanding our environment and being able to have a positive influence on it;
• Gaining more information about the composition of our environment, identifying risk factors in greater detail;
• And above all, not to rely on pure observation which often produce anthropomorphism.

Communication is of course easier with animals that look like us, such as gorillas, bonobos or chimpanzees. They can learn sign language, or associate symbols with objects (or even concepts) enabling them to communicate with us through digital tablets.

However, some technologies have been developed so that plants or other animals can send us messages, for example:

• Nanotubes placed in spinach plants can be used to find out if there are explosive substances in the soil;
• Electrodes connected to a computer transform the signals emitted by a plant into sounds of varying intensity, for example, making it "scream" when its leaves are torn off;
• Tablets with several symbols can be used by guide, service or police dogs to identify threats or to communicate with humans...

The development of technologies and strategies to communicate with our living environment can help us to better understand it. This objective seems particularly relevant in our current attempts to reconnect with nature, especially in relation to climate change and the various upheavals in biodiversity that our activities have brought about.

However, you could be a source of proposals for other techniques as well.

Suggest a solution !

If you wish, you can present, alone or with others, your proposals to the UN and you will be accompanied in the creation and development of activities based on these proposals.

If you wish to propose a solution to the World in this field :

1) Search and select the International Conference at the UN on which you want to present your idea or solution by consulting this list of GENEVA FORUM Conferences (click here)

2) Fill in the form to submit the abstract (a summary) of your presentation (click here), stating "Yes" in the box "Is your presentation, a proposal for a disruptive technology ?"

3) Come at the next GENEVA FORUM, and give a short presentation of 5 minutes (pitch) and then participate in the one hour workshop following your presentation, with GENEVA FORUM participants who will want to move forward with you.

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