Interspecies I/O

The Coller Foundation has partnered with Interspecies I/O to launch the Coller Prize for Interspecies Communication, Hall of Fame and Young Leaders – a call to action.

The Interspecies I/O’s mission is to encourage, explore and facilitate interfaces for interspecies communication and approaches for deciphering the communication of non-human animals. With the aim to positively impact species conservation, welfare, empathy, compassion, enrichment, sustainability, and understanding, it brings together a multidisciplinary group drawn from the sciences, arts and humanities in a rich collaborative forum, to advance the understanding and appreciation of the mental lives and intelligence of the diverse species with which we share our planet.

Coller Prize for Interspecies Conversations

The Coller Prize for Interspecies Conversations will exist as a public competition intended to encourage technological development to benefit humanity. The Prize will award $1,000,000 to a person or entity that can crack the Rosetta Stone of interspecies communication. 

In the quest for Interspecies Communication, we have identified three challenges:

• Bringing together data and research
• Producing innovative software tools to access the data.
• Global implementation and public access

The Prize will be governed by a panel which will include the founding members of Interspecies I/O (Dr Vint Cerf, Peter Gabriel, Dr Neil Gershenfeld, Dr Diana Reiss) and the Coller Foundation. The specific metrics against which success will be judged are to be developed at the Interspecies Conversations Closed-Door Workshop on 17 July 2020 by world-leading experts. Further details will be announced shortly. The Prize will only be awarded for a significant step-change within the sector. 

Coller Hall of Fame and Young Leaders – a call to action

The Coller Hall of Fame will celebrate the pioneering scientists of Interspecies Communication and announce a global call to action to encourage continued research. Through grants, sponsorship and mentoring, we want to support the future leaders in this field. We have a strong focus on inclusion and diversity and will be contributing to academic programmes in this area.

The Coller Young Leaders are intellectually curious, motivated and philanthropic young professionals who support Interspecies I/O and its mission. Members are actively involved in our programs and research, and receive special invitations to private events. The Coller Awards Programme will be established for members of the Young Leaders Circle to support on-going involvement and advancement in this field of science.

Inductees into the 2020 Coller Hall of Fame and Young Leaders will be announced in December 2020. We will be accepting nominations from 1st September when we will be publishing more details about how to qualify.

For more information, please contact us [email protected]

To rewatch Interspecies Conversations 2020 click here