 A connection with nature, it's a bamboo story. When I was nine, my mom gave me the chance to design my very own house. And this is what I drew. It's a fairy mushroom house. I grew up in Bali with extraordinarily creative parents. They gave me a tin of glass stones and I designed Silver Jewelry with it, which Patmade made. I took designing very seriously. And we built my fairy mushroom house. The roof is a big bamboo basket. I loved this house. I loved this house. And I loved my life. Here I am dancing for the gods in Bali. This was my childhood. And then I grew up. Because I was creative, I went off to art school in the States. And after eight years of training, I realized that I didn't want to be a gallery artist. So I had to get a job. I really wanted to prove myself, so I went straight for it. I moved to New York City and I got a job. I worked with one of the most successful and talented fashion designers in the world. And she allowed me to really follow my passion to do what I was good at. And I painted on fabric. And these are my prints. They went down the runways in New York City, one of the biggest runways in the world. And what I had learned was to interpret the tone and the texture of the moment. That's what fashion was about. And I got it and it was noticed. I felt like I had made it in New York City. My prints made it around the world and into wardrobes and it had happened. And I could afford to eat out in New York City. And eventually I put together a fabulous wardrobe. And I met the love of my life one evening in a yoga class, actually. And I started to think about the future and I started to question. And so that brought me back. My father had planted a little seedling in front of his house in Bali. And during the five years that I was in New York City, that seedling became this. This giant clump of bamboo. A bamboo shoot in three months reaches its full height. And in three years, it becomes ready for harvest. It becomes fully mature in three years. This clump will provide 20 or more poles of timber every year for the rest of my life. But you've all seen bamboo before. It's Asia's favorite scaffolding material. It's used to build real buildings with. And this overgrown grass, it has serious potential. Linda Garland had founded the bamboo movement in Bali. She innovated safe treatment solutions. Up to recently, it was very difficult to protect bamboo from insects. And she really promoted borax, which is a natural salt. And it's a natural salt that turns bamboo into a permanent building material. That's what it gives us. And this inspired a lot of people. My dad, John, he built big dreams out of bamboo in Bali. And this stack of poles became the magnificent heart of green school. Now, for the kids running through green school, this building, it represents a promise for the future. A promise of bounty and opportunity. And I wanted to be part of that. I really wanted to be part of that future. So I quit my job, my glamorous New York City life, and I came home. I founded my company. It's called Ibuku. Ibu means mother. Ku means mine. So Ibuku is my mother and your mother. It's Mother Earth. And my team is an incredible group of people. It's the artists and builders of green school. And it's young professionals, designers, architects, engineers. Now, some of their mothers would probably rather they were building skyscrapers in Jakarta. But here they are, pioneering a new future. This is our current project. This is what we're building now. It's Green Village. It's a community of 30 homes, custom homes along the river near green school. And this is how we do it. We design in real 3D. We take the same material that we'll later use to build the house. And we make bamboo models. Bamboo model making is an art. It's very technical. There's magic here. And engineering. Line by line, pole by pole, we replicate that bamboo model in the computer for the engineer's blessing. And then we go back to the model. We hand that model over to the men who will build the house. Over to the craftsmen. We tried giving them blueprints, big reams of paper. And they spread them out on the floor. And they took a little nap on them at lunchtime. It was very comfortable. So in the bamboo model, each stick represents a column of the house. They take a little tiny bamboo ruler and they measure each stick. And they find a bamboo pole that curves in just the right way, because every bamboo pole is unique. They hand select them. And the model rules. And we build four-story houses without cranes. And four months later, 4,000 bamboo shingles later, it looks like something that I think the mushroom fairy would be happy to live in. Now we follow some very clear design principles in creating these homes. We don't bring in the bulldozers. We don't flatten the land. We follow the natural contours of the slope. We design the house to fit the land. We hand carve deep foundation points into the soil. And we carry the soil uphill and away from the site. We respect the land. And we keep it as it is. And we build light on the land. So light that this little plant survived six months of construction above it. Now our houses, they're almost entirely handmade. This is a bamboo peg going into the floor. And it took me months on the construction site to really stop and grasp this. They were hand whittling each peg before they pinned it into the floor. And there are thousands of pegs in each floor. And we test them rigorously. Now we don't keep it easy for ourselves. When it comes to the interiors, we sketch. We dream. We make models. We build. We often rebuild. And each home at Green Village is completely unique. Every structure that we've built in bamboo so far is completely unique. And these are the men that make it possible. These are the artists and craftsmen of Bali. And I'm so proud to be working with them again. I knew them in my childhood and I'm back. And if they weren't here building with us, some of them tell me they'd most likely be making souvenirs out of what's left of the forests. And there's still so much to learn. We've come so far. It's only been a few years. But we've learned a lot and we're still working at it. We're looking at how to replace our plastic skylights with recycled car windshields. There's still some aluminum in our roofs. We use glues. But we are creating some of the most advanced bamboo structures in the world. And they are homes that are just full of beauty and joy. The sunlight comes in. The breezes come in. Occasionally a few bugs. And this is a TV room. It's a basket. It's a cozy place. And I only just recognized when I was preparing this talk how much it reminded me of my fairy mushroom house. It's got that kind of coziness. And the bedrooms, they can close up. Close up and turn on the AC if you need it. So we get to have some fun and we really go for it. And then we can customize almost everything. This is a hand pounded copper bathtub. And next we'd like to build the most truly sustainable hotel in Bali. If someone can spend three days green if they can choose that and they can love it, maybe they'll choose that for the rest of their lives. Who knows? These are places where you connect with nature. And they're strong. So it's incredibly strong. And a bamboo house can last a lifetime. You have to treat it properly. You have to design it very carefully. And it will last. This is a new kind of luxury in the world. And my secret plan in designing these luxurious homes is actually to really show off the possibilities. To inspire and to connect with people about it. Because this material has serious potential. I want it to become desirable so that it can be used for many, many more things throughout the world. And it's already happening. This is a chocolate factory. It's 2,000 square meters. It's the biggest commercial bamboo space in the world. And it's in our neighborhood. And it's built entirely from bamboo. We've also built housing for the garbage recyclers who live in Dampasar in the city. So this is nothing new. This is simple construction. It's using very inexpensive material. It's earthquake resistant, which is invaluable. And it's just a real solution for the tropics. Now, I know of three ways to evolve and grow in the world. The first is through crises. Those earthquakes happen. Someone leaves you. You get fired from your job. You start to change pretty quick. The second is to shift along with society at society's pace. And that will happen inevitably. But the third is I think why all of you are here today. And that is what gets you up in the morning. It's that sense of taking a personal stand. Whether or not you're prepared, whether or not you have the right qualifications or education, you take a stand and you learn what you need to know along the way. And so this was my only experience in building a house until a year and a half ago. So there's a lot that can be learned and a lot that can be done very quickly. I didn't study architecture. I'm not an engineer. I don't have an MBA. But I'm not alone. I have an incredible team. We have really big dreams. I'm really proud of what we're creating and of the stand that we're taking. Thank you.