“I believe design’s purpose is not only to show us the future,
but to bring us the future.”

Shepherding eco-friendly technology into present day reality, Yves Béhar has made a career as an agent of sustainable style. Béhar’s studio fuseproject designed the world’s first $100 XO laptop for One Laptop Per Child, a project bringing educational tools to the world’s poorest children. The first generation XO laptop consumes 10 times less energy than a standard laptop, and charges via hand or foot pedal or using solar panels. The XO 2.0 laptop will be released in spring 2010.

>> Watch Béhar explain One Laptop Per Child on Inhabitat.

Béhar designs for technology, furniture, sports, and fashion, with clients including Nike, Apple, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, Toshiba, Sony, and Coca Cola. Recognized as a visionary by TIME magazine, his work can be found in the permanent design collection of the Musee National D’Art Moderne/Centre Pompidou, the New York Museum of Modern Art, JFK Airport, the San Francisco MOMA, the Munich Museum of Applied Arts and in private collections.

“Executives often appear at Béhar’s door, saying, ‘We want to be the Apple of our industry.’ His response: ‘Do you have the guts?’ “

See Béhar along with fellow designer Robert Fabricant, Jeff Omelchuck of EPEAT, Jaymi Heimbuch of TreeHugger, Sarah Rich of Dwell and many others live on February 25 in New York City.

Register for the conference today.