BIL Conference

Upgrade Your Brain at the Singularity Summit

admin — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 09:46:42 +0000

The Singularity Summit is a Kindred Conference to the BIL Conference due to its similar focus, attendees, and powerful speakers.

Upgrade Your Brain

What will happen when and if greater-than-human intelligence is created, either by enhancing the human brain or building an artificial intelligence? Already, technological advances pave the way for further technological advances at an ever-accelerating rate; if intelligence itself could be brought to engineer still greater intelligence in a strong positive feedback loop, the consequences (for better or for worse) would be unimaginable. Author and computer scientist Vernor Vinge called such an event a “Singularity,” alluding to a breakdown in our model of the future, much as how ordinary physical assumptions fail to hold at the center of a black hole.

This August 14-15 at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco, experts in fields including animal intelligence, artificial intelligence, brain-computer interfacing, tissue regeneration, computational neurobiology, augmented reality, and more, will share their latest research and explore its implications for the future of humanity in this era of explosive scientific and technological growth, at this preeminent conference on the topic, the Singularity Summit.

Speakers at the 2010 Summit include:

* Ray Kurzweil, inventor and author of The Singularity is Near
* James Randi, scientific skeptic, founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation
* Dr. Irene Pepperberg, renowned animal cognition scientist
* Dr. Allan Snyder, director of the Centre for the Mind at the University of Sydney
* Dr. Joe Z. Tsien, neuroscientist who created mice with enhanced memory and spatial learning
* Dr. Steve Mann, augmented reality pioneer, “the world’s first cyborg”
* Dr. Ellen Heber-Katz, who studies the genetics and molecular biology of healing

Reserve your spot today at www.singularitysummit.com

Press Release: http://www.singularitysummit.com/media
Banners – you can download them here: http://www.singularitysummit.com/media/banners
4 by 6 postcards – will forward from another email (not at home right now:)). I can also mail them to your address to distribute in person. Can you send me your address and I will have them shipped to it soon.
Regarding discounts, you can learn more about them here: https://www.singularitysummit.com/registration/ Also, if you can put together a group of 10 or more, we can come up with good discounts. Last year, we did x% off for x number of people (if you have 20 people, they will get 20% off in addition to other discounts, for instance)

Open Science Summit

admin — Wed, 26 May 2010 13:26:59 +0000

At the end of July will be a gathering similar to BIL in Berkeley called the Open Science Summit.

This summer, scientists, hackers, students, patients, and activists will convene to discuss the future of our science/technology paradigm. Topics include: Synthetic Biology, Gene Patents, Open Data, Open Access, Microfinance for Science, DIY science, DIY Biology, Alternative Funding for Science, Open Source Drugs, Patent Pools, Open Health/Medicine, Patient Advocacy for Innovation

Ready for a rapid, radical reboot of the global innovation system for a truly free and open 21st century knowledge economy? Join us at the first Open Science Summit, an attempt to gather all stakeholders who want to liberate our scientific and technological commons to enable an new era of decentralized, distributed innovation to solve humanity’s greatest challenges.

BIL:Santa Cruz

admin — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 13:14:41 +0000

BIL: Santa Cruz 2010 will be on Saturday, May 1st, on the beautiful UC Santa Cruz campus. Our theme is a simple little goal,Innovative Solutions to Global Inequality. We humbly request your brain in order to save the world; together, we are a mad genius. Yours Truly,

-Nick Ernst, BIL:SC Organizer

Privacy is Dead

admin — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:49:10 +0000

About the Talk
You gaze into the Cloud Mirror, and it gazes deep into you. It will violate your privacy, especially if you carelessly litter the Internet with sensitive personal details.

The Cloud Mirror is an art piece which temporarily merges visitors’ online identities with their physical selves. It uses augmented reality, computer vision, and Internet web services to identify visitors by name; mine the Internet for photographs and facts (dirt) about them; and superimpose that data in an on-screen comic book thought bubble that follows the visitor’s motion.

About the Speaker
Eric Gradman is an interactive artist in Los Angeles, CA. His work often features computer vision, large-scale projections, unusual sensors, and custom electronics to produce fun environments that compel people to interact.

Past Talks
BIL 2009 – The Perils of Robotics
BIL 2009 – Demo: Brainwave Controlled iPhone App

About the Conference
BIL is an ad-hoc conference for people changing the world in big ways. BIL2010 was held at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, CA on Feb 12-14.

Steve Jurvetson on Rockets!

admin — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 18:33:20 +0000

About the Talk
So when Santa delivered this pine box and electric screwdriver, I was very curious…And delighted to find a gonzo huge rocket motor… a bit over 8 ft. tall. For context, the largest motor I have launched so far is 1/8 the size, a sparky N.

And the Aerotech G motor in the foreground used to impress me… It’s the largest you can buy without a license, but now I see why theothers chuckled that they make good igniters.

The machined aluminum closures and graphite nozzle are on the left, as well as the infamous o-rings. Next step – anodizing the aluminum. Then we have to pour the solid propellant grains, just like the Space Shuttle boosters.

I’ll post some photos below of the rocket this baby will fly in… Should hit Mach 2.4 on a single stage… and Mach 4.3 and 250K+ ft. altitude with Tom’s two stage bio-sampling rocket.

About the Speaker
Steve Jurvetson is a Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a leading venture capital firm with affiliate offices around the world. He was the founding VC investor in Hotmail (MSFT), Interwoven (IWOV), and Kana (KANA). He also led the firm’s investments in Tradex and Cyras, acquired for $8 billion. Current Board positions include Synthetic Genomics, SpaceX, NeoPhotonics, Tesla Motors, and Wowd. Previously, Steve was an R&D Engineer at Hewlett-Packard, where seven of his communications chip designs were fabricated. His prior technical experience also includes programming, materials science research (TEM atomic imaging of GaAs), and computer design at HP’s PC Division, the Center for Materials Research, and Mostek. He has also worked in product marketing at Apple and NeXT Software.

About the Conference
BIL is an ad-hoc conference for people changing the world in big ways. BIL2010 was held at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, CA on Feb 12-14.

Stem Cells … Hype, Hope or Reality

admin — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 19:55:49 +0000

About the Speaker
Dr. Daniel Kraft is a Stanford and Harvard trained physician-scientist with over 20 years of innovative biomedical research and clinical experience. He is an NIH funded faculty member with the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine and is on clinical faculty with the UCSF pediatric bone marrow transplantation service.

Daniel’s research has focused on novel therapies involving stem cells, including understanding and manipulating the stem cell niche (recently published in Nature and Science). Daniel is the inventor of the recently FDA approved ”MarrowMiner” device for the minimally invasive harvest of bone marrow, and founder of StemCor systems, a clinical stage company which is developing the MarrowMiner and other tools and technologies to enable regenerative medicine.

About the Conference
BIL:PIL is a healthcare unconference, bringing the concepts and ideals of the BIL Conference to the Healthcare industry. We held BIL:PIL 2009 on October 30-31, 2009 in San Diego at the San Diego State University’s BioScience Center. More information at bilpil.com.

A New Volumetric Eye: Light Field Microscopy

admin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:48:30 +0000

About the Talk
Light field cameras instantaneously capture a volume by recording both the location and the angle of photons arriving at a camera sensor. This means that each camera exposure results in a 3D structure, visualized through panning sequences, focal stacks, or volume renderings. Recently, my colleagues and I have applied this technique to microscopic objects. In this talk, I will describe our microscope and present examples from marine biology, particularly 3D neural activation patterns in the zebrafish brain (example). In addition, I will describe a concept for a classroom version which would allow interactive 3D exploration of microscopic specimens from anywhere with an internet connection.

About the Speaker
Image making is my main unifying interest. In graduate school I helped apply a new microscopic imaging technique (light field microscopy) to a model system for neuroscience (larval zebrafish), and am now working on version 2.0 of this tool. This summer I made a lot images photographing the road from Scotland to Mongolia. I love bicycling, which leads to additional imaging. I am also interested in sensory substitution (vibrating hats), science on the cheap (specifically in building a science-themed hostel in Baja), biologically-inspired design, and of course cephalopods.

About the Conference
BIL is an ad-hoc conference for people changing the world in big ways. BIL2010 was held at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, CA on Feb 12-14.

Can Sleep Shed Light on the Brain’s Dark Matter?

admin — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:00:56 +0000

About the Talk
A discussion of what insights can be learned by studying your brain’s activity during sleep.

About the Speaker
Dr. Philip Steven Low is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO, NeuroVigil, Inc. He’s also an Adjunct Professor at Stanford School of Medicine, and Research Affiliate of MIT Media Lab & The Salk Institute.

Capitalism and Activism for Healthcare Reform

admin — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:10:57 +0000

About the Talk
Today, doctors are manipulated by the fear of malpractice into recommending unnecessary procedures that individuals accept because of an information disadvantage. We have little compulsion to overcome this disadvantage because we are not the primary buyers of our own health care. The current position is untenable, and it’s in our interest to influence more systemic governmental change with the free market. There are models we can build off, and the first step to getting there is creating patient-advocates that possess the medical knowledge and fiduciary responsibility to allow their clients to decrease their personal costs and increase their quality of life despite a broken system.

Slides from the talk

About the Speaker
Tyler Willis is the Director of Marketing of Involver, which helps companies build audiences on social networks.
Personal Website

About the Conference
About the Conference
BIL:PIL is a healthcare unconference, bringing the concepts and ideals of the BIL Conference to the Healthcare industry. We held BIL:PIL 2009 on October 30-31, 2009 in San Diego at the San Diego State University’s BioScience Center. More information at bilpil.com.

Full Digital Reconstructions of Brains

admin — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 14:58:41 +0000

About the Talk
The Knife Edge Scanning Microscope (KESM) is a tool that allows high-throughput digital microscopy. It can take an entire mouse brain (or human tumor) and digitize it at a sub-micron level. Originally developed for analyzing long neural paths, it’s also excellent at tracing microvasculature in a sample. This technology has been under development for 10 years at Texas A&M, and is now being commercialized by Todd Huffman and his company, 3Scan, for many different industries including cancer research (angiogenesis inhibitors).

About the Speaker
Hello my name is Todd Huffman, and these are the things that I do…toddhuffman.pbwiki.com