The Nobel Dynamite Factory in Stockholm, Sweden will host a very interesting little one-day conference at the 17th of October 2008 entitled ‘Unfolding value – communicating biodiversity’.

The meeting aspires to be a cross-disciplinary platform for discussions between scientists, policy-makers, entrepreneurs, designers and artists on the importance of biodiversity and the value of the natural world that surrounds us.

There will be a special topic on biomimetics in the afternoon, where Swedish secondary school students will present ideas on what can be derived from nature and used by technological designers and engineers.

The keynote speaker is James L. Edwards, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. He is the Executive Director of the ambitious Encyclopedia of Life (eol) project, which aims to develop an online database with information on all known species on Earth.

To get more information on the Swedish conference, click here.