This episode features a conversation between Phil Dillard, Founder of Thruline Networks, and James Ehrlich, Founder of Regen Villages Holding. In this episode, James talks about how current industrial agriculture is an inefficient way to sustainably feed 10 billion people, the importance of self guidance and being open to change in life, and how drawing inspiration from indigenous wisdom afforded him the premise for creating Regen Villages.
This episode features a conversation between Phil Dillard, Founder of Thruline Networks, and James Ehrlich, Founder of Regen Villages Holding.
James is an Entrepreneur in Residence at Stanford University School of Medicine, a Senior Fellow at the NASA Ames Research Center, and on the White House and State Department Joint Task Force for Food, Water, Energy & Waste. He’s a co-author of the UN Sustainability Platform Brief "Regenerative Community Development," and received the Singularity University Global Grand Challenge Award in the category of Shelter. James has also been awarded as the winning national public television producer and director, and best-selling published author.
In this episode, James talks about how current industrial agriculture is an inefficient way to sustainably feed 10 billion people, the importance of self guidance and being open to change in life, and how drawing inspiration from indigenous wisdom afforded him the premise for creating Regen Villages.
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Guest Quote
“Ten years from now, success looks like a world of regenerative resilient neighborhood infrastructure, where people are able to have access and agency to their natural resources. And these are then, of course, beautiful flourishing communities.” - James Ehrlich
Episode Timestamps
(01:51) James’ journey
(09:09) Creating Regen Villages Holding
(15:36) Guidance on being open to change
(19:22) Drawing inspiration from indigenous wisdom
(23:32) Discussing the solution versus doing nothing
(29:37) Regen’s model
(32:54) Quick Hits
(37:01) Final thoughts
Links
Phil Dillard: Hello and welcome to Thruline to the Forth Sector, where we're exploring fourth sector capitalism and impact investing as an invitation to innovation and changing the world. I'm your host, Phil Dillard, Founder of Thruline Networks. This episode features a conversation with James Ehrlich, Founder of Regen Villages Holdings.
James is an Entrepreneur in Residence at Stanford University of Medicine, a Senior Fellow at the NASA Ames Research Center, and on the White House and State Department Joint Task Force for Food, Water, Energy, and Waste. In this episode, James talks about the importance of self guidance being open to change, and how he drew inspiration from indigenous wisdom to create Regen Villages.
To learn more about James' work, visit regenvillages.com and to learn more about our work at Thruline Networks, visit thrulinenetworks.com. You could find the links for both companies in the show notes. Now sit back and enjoy this conversation with James Ehrlich, Founder of Regen Villages Holdings.
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Thruline to the Fourth Sector. I'm your host, Phil Dillard, here today with James Ehrlich, the Founder of Regen Villages Holdings, and the owner of a number of really interesting and unique titles in what he does. I'll let him explain a lot about those as we get into the conversation.
But how are you doing today, James?
[00:01:33] James Ehrlich: I'm doing great. Thanks for having me, Phil.
[00:01:34] Phil Dillard: Thanks for being here. Really appreciate the time. Really looking forward to getting into why we have you here and the amazing things I think you have to share with people that will give them inspiration and hope that they can do and live how they want to in the future in a way that's aligned with their ethos.
But first, let's start in our first segment where we talk a little bit about you, your journey, and and how to get to know you. When people first ask you what do you [00:02:00] do, how do you describe
[00:02:01] James Ehrlich: what you. Well, it's a good question. I would say I bridge somewhere between, uh, academia and industry. I am a technologist.
I've been involved in software and video game design and development, but also I have been involved in case study research for many years of organic and biodynamic. Family farms and intentional communities and eco villages and co-housing and collaboratives and all this great stuff. And I'm somewhere in a Venn diagram, somewhere in the middle of all of that in founding a Stanford spinoff company called Regen Villages, which is about a redefining how people live and where people live basically in relationship to the natural world.
So having communities and neighborhoods that are capable of self reli. In terms of infrastructure on clean water, renewable energy, uh, high yield, organic food production, [00:03:00] and circular waste to resource management all at the neighborhood scale.
[00:03:04] Phil Dillard: That sounds pretty amazing and it's an interesting mix of disciplines.
How did you get involved in, in such a mix of
[00:03:10] James Ehrlich: disciplines? It's one of those things I guess I was raised, uh, in New York. My dad was a physicist and an inventor and lived way outside of any box that anybody could ever create for him, and was quite successful in what he was doing and had done in his life.
And my mom was a teacher and so I have, you know, just to thank them really for, for my education and my upbringing. But I got involved. Um, it's a long story, but basically in the late seventies, early eighties, I got involved in the music industry as a lighting designer and lighting director, and had worked with some famous and infamous recording artists.
Franklin, Joe Jackson, Grateful Dead. Many, many artists, uh, over the [00:04:00] years and through that I learned about software and technology because the lighting systems had become more and more technically enabled. And so I went to do my, uh, undergrad degree at New York University, and I focused on software and technology.
Computer science and uh, and media. So I had a background in, in film and tv. It was the early days of multimedia, and the best equivalent of that coming outta school in the eighties was really video games. And so when I'm left New York, I came out to Northern California and I started a video game software company with a group of.
We were doing, uh, at the time work with George Lucas Industrial Light and Magic Star Wars fame and, uh, doing tools and technology for visual effects, for motion pictures. And then from there we were doing a video game platform. Design for Sega, Nintendo, Atari, et cetera. And some contents, and some games as well that I designed and [00:05:00] developed.
So, uh, all great run and it was a wonderful time in the nineties and I was located in a really interesting place. I had moved north of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco to a wonderful place called Marin County. I knew I was no longer in New York when I saw people riding their horse into town for their morning coffee.
Hitching posts their horse to grab their morning latte, but I was started to get connected to these farm to table communities and neighborhoods and started get invited to these meals. I really started to feel happy and feel very relaxed and tried to understand what was going on. Was it the food, Was it the conversation?
Was it the wine? Something was very powerful, uh, that was happening, seeing where the food was coming from and being with people and preparing it, and then eating these delicious meals. So that led to this case study research that I started doing about farming, organic farming, a biodynamic farming, uh, the work of Rudolph [00:06:00] Steiner, the work of Buckminster Fuller on resource planning and thinking.
Uh, Bill Moison. On, on permaculture and food forests and things like that. And that was really the birth of this journey, if you will, on understanding where our food comes from and how it empowers us and inspires us. And interestingly enough that then led to me producing a national public television cooking show called Organic Living
And so I went from software to becoming a TV producer. Where the shows were really about where the food was coming from. These amazing chefs from around the world. And the apex of that series, in the mid 2000, we were reaching that 35 million homes a week, a national public television. Um, had a bestselling companion cookbook that I coauthored on Heche.
And the stories were more than about the. And the chefs and, and the recipes. It was really also about these communities [00:07:00] and these, uh, eco villages that had cobbled together. I call it Amish tech. Basically really interesting pieces, right? Of passive homes, of wind, of solar, of biomass, biogas in a different pieces of a puzzle that could make these communi.
Go off grid if they need to be in case of emergency. And so our stories were really kind of in between the recipes. We would do these breakout segments on crazy inventors coming up with wonderful ideas about resiliency and sustainability. And so that led me on this. Fast forward. I came to Stanford University in 2012.
I had a previous relationship with Stanford through my wife, who had been to Stanford for maybe 12 years, and I basically started this journey to bridge the software technology realm with the natural world [00:08:00] realm. And that's where I, I kind of came into this really interesting mix of how can we actually reimagine neighborhoods of the future around logical, self-reliant infrastructure.
[00:08:12] Phil Dillard: Well, I mean, it's a great story and it shows how you take the things that matter to you and weave them into more things that matter to you at different phases of your life. And, uh, you kind of followed an organic path that gave you meaning at, at, at each level and gave you the ability to apply those things there.
And I think those messages are really important to people to say, I wanna turn my passion into a paycheck. I wanna live my values, but I don't know how. And I don't know where to start. And I think you've proven. You could start somewhere and that you could keep moving in that sort of direction. And I really appreciate how you shared some of the thinkers and some of the thought leaders.
We'll do our best to pull some references to those folks and put 'em in, into the, into the show notes for folks to follow, because I don't know how many people know folks like, uh, Buckminster Fuller or. [00:09:00] Who created the preservation movements in a, in Marin that made it stick that way? You know, the first question I would, I would start is say, was there something that changed in you at a certain point in time?
Were there inflection points in those transitions that led you to make a transition from one to the other that were outside of life state things, or maybe they were, Can you chronicle the decision points and most importantly, the one that really came up with, uh, your decision to launch the Eco Villages project?
[00:09:28] James Ehrlich: Yeah, well, there are epiphanies all through life, aren't there? Some people really tune into those epiphanies, those life changing moments, right? You're just aware of something that's going on, and I just happen to be one of those people that takes particular notice that the universe is telling me something, and so I try to follow that.
I've been deeply inspired by indigenous wisdom. My whole. Even though I grew up in New York, I had, you know, many chances to get away and to, and to meet different communities and, and travel. And, and I [00:10:00] always felt most comfortable in rural settings and most comfortable, especially with First Nations people, Native American, uh, folks who have a wisdom that have been passed down to them, uh, about the natural world and, and our place.
Within the ecosystem and symbiosis of that natural world. So there were moments in my life that were just these little bells that went off and that was, you know, one of the moments that I had when I had first moved out to California. And started to get closer to nature by moving up to Marin County and then meeting these family farmers and getting even closer to the soil and doing some cultivation, myself and harvesting, and then cooking.
Cooking is a deep passion of mine, and with cooking comes stories, isn't it? Storytelling and family histories, and you don't even have to speak the same language. Of the people, you just, you can smell [00:11:00] the ingredients and the aromas and taste the flavors and laugh and cry and be, and be really present with people, um, through food.
That was, I think, one of the big epiphanies, you know, that I had. And then I guess the main thing for me was when my son was born about 11 years ago, and at that moment there were a lot of bad things happening on earth. Hurricane Sandy. Had hit my family pretty hard back in New York. They were without power for about six weeks.
Um, my mom was ill at the time, so it was, was really dicey about what was gonna happen and then Fukushima hit and that was something that was also really pretty impactful to me. There was also, you know, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. These were essentially food bearing ecosystems on planet Earth that had been broken.
And, and I became incredibly aware that this little [00:12:00] bubble that I thought we were living in with organic food and artisanal cooking and, and healthy lifestyle was really in jeopardy. And I started to realize that certain food ingredients were starting to not be on my list anymore because of where they were coming from and what could be, you know, inside those ingredients.
So that made me have a wake up call about hyper local food product. And so when I come to Stanford, I really started to dig into that research and then on that really dovetailed with this housing competition called the Solar Decathlon, which was a Department of Energy, US Department of Energy competition who could build the most energy positive home.
And I came into Stanford as a coach and lecturer for the 2013 and 2015 cohort on that single family house. Context, you know, as the sort of regenerative, uh, neighborhood infrastructure [00:13:00] person. And I remember vividly, I went to the professors about five minutes after the cohort started and I said, Look, it occurs to me that a smart house inside of a dumb neighborhood doesn't make much sense.
And I was really lucky at the time, uh, Professor Larry Leer, Chris Ford, uh, Martin Fisher, you know, some of these wonderful professors at Stanford, basically with design empathy had said, Wow, that's. Powerful idea. Let's focus on that. Let's be interested in that. And that gave me, you know, the wind under my wings to have these incredible professors say, Okay, we believe in this idea and we think it's the right way forward.
So I self invested at that moment in both on campus and off campus research and, uh, most of the tested research we were doing off campus. And this had to do really with the beginning of our software stack, which is a village operating system that we're building and we've been building, uh, but also on [00:14:00] the sensors and the data relevant to farming and connectivity to, to quote unquote smart homes.
Those were the epiphanies and those were the connections that brought me. To found Region Villages as a spinoff company. I
[00:14:15] Phil Dillard: love those. Those are a very, um, thank you for sharing such an open and vulnerable story. I think there are some important things that go back to if we're gonna try and teach people how to hear these things themselves.
Before we dig into the solution a little bit, if you will, the big question that popped up to me is, How did you hear the universe and how did you find a way to learn from indigenous wisdom? For me, um, I share a lot of those passions, right? I love to cook. Food and traditions are part of family history on both sides of the family, and they go way back and they tell a lot of story.
About who we are and where we're from. We have, uh, Native Heritage in our family from a North Carolina, a tribe out in North Carolina, but that's not where I got my connection. I got mine through the Boy Scouts and the Order of the Arrow and the lessons that we got, um, from learning [00:15:00] about the Lenni Leipe from where I was in outside of the Philadelphia area, learning about that sort of cultural heritage.
So I learned a lot of that in a very, um, organic way, but not necessarily everybody does that. And not necessarily everybody. How to listen to the messages from the universe and tell stories, and what you told was there were certain things that spoke to you intrinsically. There were certain life events that happened.
There were also extreme weather events and human induced tragedies, and all of these gave you a message that you acted on. So if you were gonna give somebody a guidance, On how to peer that lesson to the universe to allow themselves to be open to the change that they need to make for themselves, for the culture of their organization.
In order to hear this and be open them to where it's guiding them, what would you suggest to someone?
[00:15:49] James Ehrlich: I think that morning meditation is really great. Try to wake up and spend at least 10 or 15 minutes, just sort of quietly meditating and, and it's really just about breathing and [00:16:00] understanding the power of our.
It's just an opportunity to have a little quiet time and to find space in between the crazy schedule and the crazy life and all of the messages that were given on a daily basis of how bad things are and how negative things are that's manufactured. I have to just say that's really manufactured because the truth is that we live in, honestly, an abundant planet.
That is capable of sustaining, um, 10 billion plus people in very flourishing ways, but we're given these messages to, to frighten us because it's been proven, I guess, by some research somewhere, that when people are frightened, they consume more, they consume with reckless, abandoned. To think it's important that people recognize that sometimes it were being manipulated, but most importantly it's to just take the time to yourself.
[00:17:00] And be good to yourself to check in and hear what it is that you feel like is happening to yourself that you would like. I put it this way, create visioning, is everything okay? Every time I feel stuck, I meditate and I imagine, and I envision very specifically how and where I wanna be, what it is that I'm looking.
And there's something about that that sets an intention, which I say is a bit like phototropism. It's like what makes plants bend towards the light, right? Just by saying it to yourself and seeing it, envisioning it, your mind, you tend to bend that way. You go that way. And unfortunately, I feel like many people are, are not nice to themselves and are quite negative, and that cuts those dialogues off.
So I would say those are where the epiphanies for me have come [00:18:00] from. Also, not to be
[00:18:01] Phil Dillard: afraid. All of that is a journey in and of itself. Listening to that inner voice, developing the ability to actually be still in it. Peace and see who you are and where you want to go. And then that practice to creative visioning.
I'm hoping it seems like maybe your early creative work. Gave you the ability to do creative visioning because you started your career making something out of nothing that was, that would someone would call a creative career. And you extended that into something that delivers a physical and lasting impact on the planet, which to me, I think is really inspiring because a lot of times when I speak to people, I speak to creatives who say, Ah, you know, where's there a space for me in.
Part of the world. I'm not a technologist, I'm not a wealthy person, Whichever. But they have incredible power for visualization and creation to give people images that they wouldn't come up with themselves that kind of inspired them. Did you see anything similar or different in the indigenous wisdom component?
Because a lot of times, you know, I ask people, [00:19:00] the indigenous life isn't, isn't in a utopia. Right? It isn't something that was, that was somehow perfect. And lasting, but in the legacy of where we come from, the colonial past, from clashes of cultures, there is wisdom in it. Did you see anything different in that wisdom or in that visioning that helps you pull this together as well?
[00:19:23] James Ehrlich: There's a, a level of simplicity that we have lost to a certain extent, and that simplicity is in the natural world and there's some fantastic. Design research, uh, based on what's called bio medics or biomimicry, or you mimic nature. And honestly, that's the same work that we're doing now with Region Villages, which is to understand from an indigenous First Nations perspective, what does the land want here in terms of its ability to produce?[00:20:00]
And sustain life and to be both restorative and conserve, but also allow for a certain amount of housing density to be built there using passive circular building materials that can enable families to live really comfortably. Indignified housing, and most importantly, that has social affordable access to that housing.
And that's a key. Block these days, that's causing more and more stress. So it starts with the indigenous wisdom and, and it ends with the indigenous wisdom and everything in between threads. This idea that we, ourselves, we have completely forgotten. I would have to say that we are creatures who live in ecosystems.
We consume and we produce. , right? And so there's this un feeling somehow or another that we have risen [00:21:00] above or separate and are distant from this. And that's just the furthest thing from the truth. We're not.
[00:21:07] Phil Dillard: That's exactly what I was gonna say. Right? Nothing is farther from the truth. Nature doesn't create waste, and when nature finds something that doesn't work, nature works to eliminate that balance and go back to a balance.
Ecosystems naturally go to a certain level of balance. If you have too many of a certain type of creature in one ecosystem, then it's out of balance. Nature puts it back in balance, and then it, it comes back. And actually what you, what you said gave me an epi. Right. The indigenous wisdom shows us how humans can learn, live in balance with nature, and if we can look at how the, those ecosystems worked and flourished, we do know that we need to make an adaptation on that to support 10 billion humans on the planet, right?
There's not enough space to live like the indigenous. In the exact same way and have 10 billion humans on the planet. But there is more than enough [00:22:00] abundance to take those lessons and make our ecosystems mimic those things that worked in those regions. So we are, again, humans in balance with nature.
Would you agree with that statement? Yeah,
[00:22:11] James Ehrlich: absolutely. I would say that there's plenty enough room on planet Earth. It's kind of a misnomer that there isn't well enough room or enough land. It's just how the land is being used. I think that's the critical point is that it's, it's not being used well. It's not being stewarded well, and it's not really the farmer's fault because they've been sold a bill of goods that if they farm a monoculture crop a certain way long enough, they make a certain profit and that, you know, allows them to afford, you know, x kind of life.
But it does not take into consideration the fact that the. Needs to have biodiversity. We have to really consider, you know, the natural ecosystem. So yeah, I would say wholeheartedly that we need to, [00:23:00] to find. Solutions rapidly that re-empower us to live closer to nature.
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You know, the other thing that's I find is interesting in when you talk about the monoculture lie. . It also transforms the farmer from someone who serves the community to someone who, who provides a good A to and a and a ho homogenized good. And that's not necessarily what those people, people are for, which leads me, as we go into our third segment, the discussion about the solution versus doing nothing.
What I usually start with is saying, you know, what's the heartbreaking part of this issue? What, What happens if we. Do nothing, and I think we can go there, but, uh, if you could, in responding to that question, what I'm curious about most is the story about hyper local food production. Because if you follow the traditional.
Mathematics or you look at the [00:25:00] existing market solutions, hyperlocal is small scale. It doesn't seem to imply that there's going to be trade or global trade or that you're gonna have the diversity of food stuffs that you want for very healthy diet. And I'm curious how you would respond to those two questions.
[00:25:17] James Ehrlich: Well, there was a fantastic UTA un uh, study that came out, I think it was in 2011. That, uh, you know, sort of 72 point font that said Time to Wake up. And it was really a study about the fact that the best way to feed 10 billion people is not through Big Ag. It's not through industrial Ag. It's actually small family farm.
Hyper local, regional kinds of artisanal ingredients. Again, biodiverse enabling the right kind of pollinators and the right kind of symbiosis to happen so that we are able to feed ourselves full menu. Okay, so, [00:26:00] uh, the concept. Globalized. You know, supply chains is breaking. Okay. I just got in my newsfeed just now.
Oil tanker runs a ground in the SUEZ Canal blocking all traffic. That's just happened again? Yeah. No, this is now an oil tanker. Oh.
[00:26:17] Phil Dillard: Cause that happened. But then, Oh, that was a A cart container. Ship.
[00:26:20] James Ehrlich: That was a container. And then of course, we saw what happened. That shelves started to go bare in supermarkets because, It's an untenable position we put ourselves in that we're relying on airplanes and containerships to sustain, uh, our day to day life.
Okay. Uh, Europe is experiencing that now in extreme ways. We're ex experiencing that now. The whole world is experiencing it. The best way forward, just as the young Tad report suggests, is to look at each and every opportunity to grow food. In a neighborhood context, and it could be front [00:27:00] yard, backyard, rooftop, alleyway, balconies in the aggregate.
Okay? You're gonna start to get an an overproduction, you're gonna start to get an abundant surplus, and then essentially with region villages model, okay? Is to combine soil based farming. Organic, biodynamic sort of a quilt, patchwork of cultivars each season in different places. The permaculture food, forests, orchards, BEMs guilds, SW kind of context again, soil based.
Then marry that with controlled environment, farming controlled environment greenhouses with aquaponics and aeroponic systems and aquaculture. So we have a combination of fish, protein, chicken, egg, Turkey, rabbit, depends on where you are culturally for that. But also, um, light dairy goat, She. The occasional cow walking around for biodynamic purposes and for some artisanal raw milk.[00:28:00]
You can imagine that a neighborhood of let's say 400 families on about 60 to 80 acres once or twice a week at least, that a basket of fresh, delicious, full meal program is coming to your house. That you, when you open your window, see where the food is coming from. Now here's an important point. Several points.
One, almost zero carbon footprint associated because it has no kilometers or miles to travel between where it's cultivated and to your plate. The second is, we would argue it's more bio available nutrition, right? Because when you buy a piece of corn or a head of lettuce and it has traveled 1200 miles, or it's come from an airplane or a container ship to get to.
For sure the nutritional value of that food has been depleted significantly. So there's also the access and the [00:29:00] agency, which relates to long term health. There's this wonderful research initiative called The Blue Zones. Maybe you've heard about it, where people are living to a past 110 years old.
They're living in these small villages around the world, Greece, Italy. Spain, Japan, et cetera. And the reason that they're having this longevity, happy longevity, no dementia, no pharmaceuticals, nothing. Not seeing doctors is because they are active and they are aware and they're part of their food chain.
They are cultivating, they're cooking together, they're eating together, and that, as it turns out, is a key metric and indicator for long, healthy. So there's a, there is a better way forward and we're not talking about getting rid of farmers or paving over farmland to put these neighborhoods, but actually reawakening what farm families got into [00:30:00] farming in the first place, for which was to create artisanal delicious ingredients.
And
[00:30:06] Phil Dillard: to serve their communities with healthy foods and things like that. Now, there's two things that come to mind of that. If I pull that thread, I say, Well, first you're talking about disrupting a global supply chain and global business and what happens, uh, to trade. And then I say second well, I know personally, I, I definitely know the current limitations of vertical aeroponics and hydroponics in the things that one can grow.
You know, right now I can grow greens and herbs and things like that. It's harder to grow berries. I don't even know anyone who's growing, um, a zucchini unless you're in a greenhouse, for example. But when I think I'm hearing you say, is a mix of those things in the community to the right level of balance can deliver for that community.
So what do you do? When you're living in Minnesota or you're living in Nevada, or you know, I'm in the East Bay of the Bay Area and I have a, [00:31:00] some sort of fungus that kills off all of our production and I need to pull it from, from somewhere, somewhere else. It seems to require a different component of market trade.
And have you guys tackled bent yet in your model? Yeah, to
[00:31:12] James Ehrlich: a certain extent. We understand the greatest variability we experience is in farming. There's no doubt. In cultivation and whether it's pests or whether it's um, water and the quality of that water, of course it's very important here in California, you know, you have to also be worried about fires and smoke.
That also affects, of course, detrimentally your output and your crop. And just to go back to your point about aquaponics and aeroponics, you know, in our research, in our work, you know, we've been able to grow all kinds of berries and all kinds of vegetable. And, you know, sort of sidebar to the aquaponic system, you can also have root vegetables where you're still, you know, deriving your nitrate feed from the fish tanks to those, uh, soil based [00:32:00] beds.
The capability of generating tons of food in a small plot area is there, and we know that's possible. There are challenges of course, in Norway as there are challenges in Saudi Arabia. I would just put that as references from Wisconsin to Nevada. Right? Same. Um, as there are in tropical and subtropical locations, however, there are artisanal growers nonetheless in these places and using the means and the methods that they have learned over, again, indigenous wisdom over ages to be able to deliver the nutrition that they need for their.
So we believe wholeheartedly that humanity can rise to that, uh, occasion and be able to overcome those variable obstacles and be able to feed people. So from our perspective, we know what's possible cause we've seen it and we've participated in, [00:33:00] in how these things can be grown and, and work. And I have colleagues who've done astonishing.
In Middle East, North Africa, and Mina in, um, Vietnam, in, you know, in other places where, you know, just again, it's just extreme, you know, either humidity, heat, pests, whatever it may be, we would be able to, to overcome that.
[00:33:22] Phil Dillard: Outstanding. Well, um, that's super exciting to hear and very inspirational. I look forward to learning more about those folks who are some of your colleagues.
Hopefully we can get some of them on the podcast or we can get out and meet them at some of the, the live events that we expect to do in, in the coming months. Uh, Because we know that we need this, We know we want, we need to understand the learnings, how to invest in them in multiple ways, and how to inspire that legion of, of young people who are looking for solutions like this so that they can participate.
You know, we only have a few minutes left and I wanna be respectful of your time. And we'll go into our final segment where we get into our, our quick hits, where we talk about path to [00:34:00] actions and, and, and recap a little bit. So, um, there's five questions here and just gimme a, a quick answer and then we can, we can follow up, um, with any sort of closing thoughts.
The first question is, 10 years of now, 10 years from now, what does success look like to
[00:34:14] James Ehrlich: you? 10 years from now, success looks like a world of regenerative, resilient neighborhood infrastructure. Where people are able to have access an agency to their natural resources. And these are then of course, beautiful, flourishing communities.
[00:34:33] Phil Dillard: Outstanding. Second question. Outside of your company, what project, program, campaign or creation really inspires you?
[00:34:41] James Ehrlich: There's a lot, actually. I mean, it's sort of too many different things to, to sort of list. I mean, honestly, I just feel like. Being at Stanford University for a decade now, there's so much going on and I'm really blown away by, by my esteemed, uh, colleagues there.
There's now a new [00:35:00] climate school, for instance, that just got founded by John Do. It's exciting opportunity to to finally have really what's a catalyst program of all these different ideas across campus to come and, and have a thankful. So that's computer science and engineering, and mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, uh, legal, the law school, medical school, everybody can come together and contribute and be part of that.
So there's lots of different folks that I, I, it's hard for me to just call one out.
[00:35:31] Phil Dillard: Well that's okay cuz you named a few and we know some folks who are kicking around those places. So one of the reasons it's good to be out, uh, in this part of the world. Um, so next question. What are the most important things an individual can do to lead to a better future?
[00:35:46] James Ehrlich: Don't be afraid. Don't buy into the current messaging of everything being horrible and terrible. Uh, be optimistic. Some research just came out recently that said people who are optimistic live longer. So I'm optimistic about [00:36:00] that and really that everybody can make a difference. I mean, if you grow some food and I grow some food and we do things every little bit actually makes a difference.
[00:36:11] Phil Dillard: Well, you've inspired me. I have a green and I have lots of plants in my home and I, I, I grow plants to, to give away. During my, during my, my pandemic hobby was making corn trees. I've given away like 30 lemon lime and, and avocado trees. But, um, I might have to go down to Fort Mason and get a little plot in that neighborhood garden.
Just, just to walk the walk a little bit. So, thanks for the nudge birth question. What's the most important thing governments and NGOs can. To lead to a
[00:36:38] James Ehrlich: better future. I mean, gosh, you know, we have to change the bloody rules, the bloody rules around zoning, agricultural ranch and, and open space land to accommodate for critical housing shortages where we don't compromise that land and that open space.
Rather, we can create these region villages, communities where they are [00:37:00] overproducing, abundant surplus of artisanal ingredients. Um, so it's the rule book getting changed. Funding. You know, there's no reason at all why we shouldn't be completely funded by Sovereign Wealth and Pension Funds to the tune of at least a few billion Euro or dollars to allow us to be able to get this pipeline of projects that we have under our hood thought to fruition.
Yeah,
[00:37:28] Phil Dillard: I can totally understand that. Less spra. More growing spaces, more productive spaces, more green spaces so people can actually get connected. I'm always surprised when I, when I meet kids, I'm surprised in not youth or adults, even from the urban environments, from the cities who haven't seen a dairy farm or a corn field or a, or God forbid, you.
Permaculture inside of a forest. Right. So very interesting stuff. Last question, but certainly not least, we always miss something that, you know, upon reflection [00:38:00] we probably should have talked about or we should have asked. Is there any final thought that you'd like to share with our listeners before
[00:38:05] James Ehrlich: we wrap up?
I just wanted to mention the fact that we are a software company in addition to being residential planning development company. Um, the Village OS software is a machine learning software platform intended to both design and. Self-reliant neighborhoods. So there's this wonderful new world happening in called generative design, where artificial intelligence, machine learning can look at the data of a piece of land, um, incorporate the indigenous wisdom that we talked about, all the natural resource flows.
And baked into that would be the sort of kit of parts of relevant building typologies and infrastructure pieces that could be then overlaid on top of that land to essentially let the software come up with its own ideas and designs for how this neighborhood could look and work and function, [00:39:00] and that we feel is gonna help change the rules because it could.
Things forward faster, reduce the rhetoric, and get the planning conditions that we need. Then the second side of the software then becomes operational. Once the neighborhoods are built, the software can look at historical data, real time sensor data, and actually predictive modeling, and this is where it gets really exciting, right?
This is what we call ourselves, the Tesla Eco Villages here, because of the fact that we look at this idea. Neighborhoods being able to communicate with each other around the world, learn, improve, or mitigate against risk based on where they are in similar climate zones. So in other words, you wake up in the morning, you're having your coffee, and you don't even realize it, but your neighborhood has had a software upgrade.
It's learned and improved based on global data information relevant to you and your family's flourish. And that's how we imagine data, right? You own it. It's part of the village. [00:40:00] It's a highly encrypted, anonymized data, but it's really about the the flourishing infrastructure. Full stop. So
[00:40:08] Phil Dillard: that sounds, uh, amazing.
Does it give the ability to integrate with data or consume data around, say, climate emergencies, right? So that, um, you can help you design a more resilient system or protect against an incoming hurricane or something of that nature?
[00:40:27] James Ehrlich: Absolutely. That's, that's really the main, the main point of the software is that if we are in a hurricane zone, we understand the typologies have to be hurricane relevant, that the energy, water waste food systems have to be breakaway and capable of coming back online after the storm has subsided.
The same thing, whether it's a seismic zone or whether it's a high fire zone, and having the right fire suppression. Enabled, you know, all of that is relevant to the software as well as, you know, [00:41:00] uh, flood zones. You have to be aware of drought and flood, and that's now happening in the same places around the world.
We see places in India, for instance, that have one minute, they're getting a monsoon and they're completely flooded, and then the next minute, uh, or the next several months later, they're in complete. And so we have to be able to learn from these things and design and be ready, and that climate adaptability is really, really important and critical Also for the the big finance folks who are supporting esg, sdg Green transition commitments.
[00:41:34] Phil Dillard: Right, Because you have to be able to, if you're an insurer, you have to have current and accurate models of your, for your insurance, of your property and casualty, for example, right? If you're a finance year, you need to be able to understand what are the actual risks and what's the proper structure to kind of mitigate those risks as you're trying to invest and build in these equal communities.
And it goes on and on and on. And I, and I've heard things about taking, um, indigenous [00:42:00] wisdom. For how they managed floods, for example. Um, in ways to cultivate the land and the water catchment system so you can deal with the climate that's changing regardless of the cause. Cannot die, regardless of the cause that the climate itself is changing.
That needs to be adapted in order to in order to protect the infrastructure that's current or new. Um, or, or else there's catastrophic.
[00:42:28] James Ehrlich: Absolutely. I mean, we, we founded ourselves as a Dutch holding company. One of the main reasons was because of, of the Dutch 900 years living below sea level really effectively.
And I mean, there's other reasons as well to inform an EU company as a holding company. But, but the Dutch especially have been incredibly and continue to be incredibly resilient in terms of, of water management. But also, people don't realize this, but that the Netherlands is the number one food producer in the world.
For such a tiny country [00:43:00] because of controlled environment and, and soil based farming. The marriage of those two. The Dutch are, are really adept at these
[00:43:06] Phil Dillard: things. That's quite, quite amazing and a great example of human resilience, quite thoughtful and, and, and worthy of future further exploration. I'm sure we can go on for a long time, but I want to respect your time and thank you again for making the time to talk with us.
Uh, really, really appreciate you making the time. Very excited to learn more. We're gonna show, share a lot of this information in the show notes and in our social media channels. And thank you very much, James. For making the time to spend with us today.
[00:43:36] James Ehrlich: Thank you, Phil. It's been really enjoyable. I really appreciate it.
[00:43:38] Phil Dillard: And to everybody out there listening, thank you again for listening to this episode of Thruline to the Fourth Sector. Really appreciate you and look forward to seeing you next time. Take care.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Thruline to the Fourth Sector. I'm your host, Phil Dillard. If you enjoyed the show, please leave a rating and tell a friend. To learn more about the fourth sector, visit thrulinenetworks.com.
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