Lauren Fletcher

Lauren Fletcher is the inventor and pioneer of tree planting drone technology for ecosystem restoration. He is the founder of Flying Forests which has developed ecosystem restoration technology for land and marine environments including seagrass. The primary innovation is a decentralized business model that provides a technology layer in partnership with existing, local organizations. By creating locally co-owned business units with local employment, they can reduce the cost of restoration to less than 5% of existing methods *and* provide local social uplift with fair revenue sharing throughout the value chain.

At Beta Earth, they are developing technology to produce compound animal feed from agricultural waste.

He is an LP in Savia Ventures, which has a focus on LATAM and Environment, and Oxonian Ventures, which invests in startups by Oxford Alumni.

He holds a PhD in Physics (Oxford) and M.S. in Civil & Environmental Engineering (Stanford). He has 20+ years of experience as an Engineer and Scientist for NASA across Space Shuttle, International Space Station, and Mars exploration programs. He is a serial entrepreneur, a member of the founding faculty of Singularity University. His expertise includes engineering, design thinking, bio-technology, biological sciences; space and systems engineering; planetary science; and social impact and entrepreneurship.