Proceedings - Biomass South 2008

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Steven Burke, Acting President, Biofuels Center of NC and Sr. Vice President of Corporate Affairs, NC Biotechnology Center

Mr. Burke serves as Chairman of the Biofuels Center of North Carolina, served as its founding President in 2007, and currently serves as Acting President.  He is a board member of the Institute of Forest Biotechnology, a private non-profit corporation addressing the scientific, industry, and societal issues of forest biotechnology worldwide; he served from 2001-2004 as its founding Chair.  He also serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the Biotechnology Institute, a non-profit corporation working for strengthened biotechnology education nationwide. He served two terms – in 1995-96 and 1997-98 – as chair of the 100+ member Council of Biotechnology Centers of BIO, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, and served on the Council’s Board from 1993-2000. The Council is an international grouping of bioscience centers, agencies, and initiatives. He served from 1994 until June of 1999 on the Emerging Companies Section Governing Board of BIO.  Prior to joining the newly established North Carolina Biotechnology Center in 1985, Mr. Burke taught Instructional Design at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina.  He has an undergraduate degree in Religion and Literature from Duke University, and a Master of Education in Instructional Design from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

Notes:

Steven Burke tasked the audience with looking at biomass and biofuels innovations thorough a humanist perspective. He asked the group to think about how a place changes itself and how might biofuels and renewable fuels change society in its myriad components. He spoke of three nouns that would help envision the magnitude of change that we are embarking upon:

In a thought-provoking manner, the audience was invited to review other technologies and the change that they brought upon society and use that as a lens to view what would result from the mass adoption of renewable fuels and biomass on a grand scale.

Key Quotes:

From George Bernard Shaw: “ Imagination is the beginning of creation.”

Steve noted that Imagination is the precursor to Will and will is the precursor to Creation

Summary:

Mr. Burke noted that Biofuels will impact EVERYTHING and listed 21 separate items of which the note taker captured 17, they are:
·landscape ·industry ·environment ·policy· forests·agriculture · work · education · investment · research · development ·society · energy·international ranking· land use· behavior · food

Thanks to Sarah Ashton, Rachel Cook, Lindsey Hannum, James Jeuck, Liwei Lin, James McCarter, Susan McIntyre, and Mark Megalos for providing notes and summaries for presentations.


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