symposia
Mar 16, 2008
SciBarCamp day 2
A fantastic ending to a highly successful first camp. We plan more
The entire weekend went off with very few hitches--the worst being a bit of schedule crunch on Saturday, but nothing that actually stopped people from presenting. I took a few more photos, but at this point there's a lot of other people who had much better cameras than my phone, and who were much better photographers; so I'll just point you to the Flickr page where many of the pix have been collected.
If you'd like more detail about what we discussed, you can drop by the SciBarCamp website and look at the program schedules. We've encouraged people to blog about the event and to tag their entries with SciBarCamp, so you can track down a lot more about it at sites like technorati.
I'd like to thank everybody who had faith in us and came. I'd also especially like to thank the other organizers, Jen Dodd, Michael Nielsen, Eva Amsen, Lee Smolin, and Jamie McQuay. Jen and Michael were the instigators and they, Eva and Jamie did most of the work; I was just along for the ride, really. Jen and Jamie in particular spent their own money to make it all happen, and deserve special mention for it.
We've talked about whether we're doing another SciBarCamp; there's no reason why not, it's a scheduling issue more than anything. I hope the meme spreads, and that it becomes a regular in Toronto and beyond.
Mar 15, 2008
SciBarCamp: opening night success
100+ self-starters crammed in one room. Order ensues
Well, the SciBarCamp's gotten off to a smashing start. Last night over 100 people showed up at the Debates room in Hart House and we kicked off the event with drinks, shmoozing, and the ad hoc creation of our program.

Above's a picture of the introductions period, with everybody saying who they are and what their interests are.

The scrum. Nobody was shy; it was a complete mix-up of enthusiastic and wildly diverse people.
I'll try to post the Saturday schedule later. My favourite proposed event so far is the "Interactive Salt Lick Sculpture." That should be interesting.
Mar 06, 2008
SciBarCamp is full up
Here's a brief un-program for the event
Next weekend's first SciBarCamp is now full, with well over 100 confirmed attendees. The event's happening at Hart House, which is a magnificent location in the heart of Toronto (the University of Toronto takes up a square mile of the downtown core).
Fear not if you were hoping to come but were unable. We want this event to be the first of a regular series. Just make sure you follow the news at the SciBarCamp website, and sign up early!
SciBarCamp's deliberately vague schedule
The program for SciBarCamp will be decided in a collaborative way
involving all participants on the opening night (Friday night). This
is when all the talks and discussions will be scheduled.
The
start and finish times for each day have been decided, and are set out
below. The opening event on Friday night will be integral to the whole
weekend, so please plan to attend on this night as well as on the rest
of the weekend.
SUNDAY, March 16, 9:00am to 5:00pm
The second day of talks, discussions, performances, and demos.Feb 19, 2008
SciBarCamp
Here's your formal invitation to a cool and transformative event happening in Toronto in March
This is fun: I'm helping organize a “SciBarCamp” with a diverse group of local people including entrepreneurs, students, artists, and scientists. The event will take place at Hart House at the University
of Toronto on the weekend of March 15-16, with an opening reception on the
evening of March 14.
SciBarCamp is a gathering of scientists, artists, and forward-thinking members of the public for a weekend of talks and discussions. The goal is to create connections between science, entrepreneurs and local businesses, and arts and culture. The themes are:
- The edge of science (eg, synthetic biology, quantum gravity, cognitive science)
- The edge of technology (eg, mobile web, ambient computing, nanotechnology, web 2.0)
- Science 2.0 (open access, changing models of publication and collaboration)
- Scientific literacy and public engagement (eg, one laptop per child project, policy and science, technology as legislation, science as culture, enfranchising the poor, the young, the old)
In
the tradition of BarCamps, otherwise known as "unconferences", (see BarCamp.org
for more information), the program is decided by the participants at the
beginning of the meeting, in the opening reception. Presentations and
discussion topics can be proposed at the SciBarCamp
website or on the opening night.
The talks will be informal and interactive; to encourage this, speakers who
wish to give PowerPoint presentations will have ten minutes to present, while
those without will have twenty minutes. Around half of the time will be
dedicated to small group discussions on topics suggested by the
participants. The social events and meals will make it easy to meet
people from different fields and industries. Our venue, Hart House, is a congenial space
with plenty of informal areas to work or talk. There will be free
wireless access throughout.
Our goals are:
- Igniting new projects, collaborations, business opportunities, and further events.
- Intellectual stimulation and good conversation.
- Integrating science into Toronto's cultural, entrepreneurial, and intellectual activites.
- Protoyping a model that can be easily duplicated elsewhere.
Attendance is free, but there is only space for around 100 people, so please register soon by sending an email to Jen Dodd (dodd.jen@gmail.com) with your name and contact details.. Include a link to your blog or your organization's webpage that we can display with your name on the participants list at www.SciBarCamp.org.
More information can be found at www.SciBarCamp.org.

