The iCREST concept was first conceived in 2014 by Drs. Bishop and Heller and then launched in 2016 as the education initiative of the International Centre for Earth Simulation (ICES) Foundation, whose founding principle is the symbiosis of science, society, and nature for the betterment of all life on Earth.
Established in 2010, the ICES Foundation set out its goal to integrate the vast pools of knowledge contained within today’s multitude of scientific and socio-economic specializations and to develop next generation ‘holistic’ modeling, simulation, and visualizations, aided by AI methods, that accurately depict the medium- and long-term future direction of planet Earth. This is a project for the common good that provides enhanced decision support and improved scientific underpinnings to our current and future policy-makers especially with respect to the global and local effects of climate change, extreme weather, wildfire, environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, resource depletion, fresh water availability, food security, public health and safety, earthquake, tsunami, landslide, volcanic, industrial accident, geo-engineering, asteroid threats and other natural hazards, with the aim of developing early warning and disaster reduction and mitigation strategies.
The ICES Foundation provided guidance and start-up funding to establish the iCREST Foundation as an independent 501c3 U.S.-based Membership organization which was registered in the state of Delaware on September 26, 2022.
Since its inception in 2014, the initiative which grew into the iCREST Foundation has worked to convene a broad knowledge network of U.S. education, thought, and program leaders already focused on U.S. middle and high school environmental literacy programs to enhance existing resources and programs empowering youth with skills they need for coping with the future they will inherit. Today, the iCREST Foundation is actively implementing its strategic plan to conduct a Forum of environmental education leaders and develop a Resilience and Sustainability Framework to help kids build socially and environmentally resilient communities that safeguard Earth’s increasingly challenged life support system.