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Volans Ventures: Preparing for take-off

www.volans.com

Volans Ventures supports the evolution and deployment of scalable solutions to 10 great global divides. Volans began to evolve late in 2007, in conversations between John Elkington, Pamela Hartigan, Geoff Lye and Sophia Tickell—quickly drawing in Sam Lakha and Kevin Teo. The central concept is that Volans will work in partnership with other organizations, providing a flexible, highly leveraged means to support innovators and entrepreneurs working to bridge—and ultimately close—the great economic, social and environmental divides that pose such a profound challenge to our collective future.

And our name? We have the flying fish (Piscis or Pisces volans) to thank for that. In Latin, volans meant ‘flying’ or ‘flying thing’—which seemed appropriate as we began to work toward a big jump forward in our field and working lives¹. Volans is also a constellation in the southern sky, first described in Johann Bayer’s Uranometria in 1603, which brought to mind thoughts of navigation and the deep structure of things.

Initially based in Geneva, London, Oxford and Singapore, Volans is still embryonic, with this beta website providing place-holders for several key components, including

[1] The family name Exocoetidae is used for flying fish. It comes from the Greek εξω-κοιτος (exo-koitos, "lying down outside" or "sleeping under the stars") which, according to Wikipedia, derives from the common occurrence of sailors finding stranded flying fish lying on the decks of their boats. Less romantically, the Exocet missile—which moves between water and air—was also named after these creatures.