Islands are disproportionately affected by global change and epitomize the coastal zones where most of humanity lives. They serve as models for our common island home: planet Earth. The Island Digital Ecosystem Avatar (IDEA) Consortium is building use-oriented simulations (avatars) of entire systems, from genome to society, starting with Moorea and Tetiaroa in French Polynesia. The island avatar is a next generation social network harnessing collaborative intelligence locally and globally. It functions as a community-scale sustainability simulator modeling links and feedbacks between climate, environment, biodiversity, and human activities across coupled marine-terrestrial landscapes. The resulting knowledge is being used on Moorea and Tetiaroa to predict human and natural change at scales relevant to management/conservation actions, particularly with respect to coral reefs and the genetic control of mosquito disease vectors.