From acid-loving metal munchers to photosynthetic cyanobacteria and microbiome consortia, non-model microbes are already quietly tackling problems that conventional hosts can’t touch. Join a fast-paced lunch-and-learn where leaders in strain development, fermentation, and microbial applications discuss how we can best build a flourishing bioeconomy.We will map the opportunity landscape across food, fuels, therapeutics, agriculture, biomining and planetary terraforming, and discuss practical hurdles like genetic tractability, scale-up, and regulatory paths. Attendees will leave with a field guide to promising clades, toolkits, and collaboration models that can turn today’s “wild types” into tomorrow’s workhorses.