Project Exploration Blog

7-30-10, Chicago

Heading out tomorrow to SciFoo with Paul.

Where am I going? To an invitation-only conference at Google in Mountain View, California… It’s right near Sunnyvale, California. (As a Buffy fan it’s not lost on me that we’re essentially at the proverbial Hellmouth.)

Google's headquarters, the Googleplex. (Of COURSE they call it that!)

So into the belly of the beast I’m headed with stories and snapshots of Project Exploration’s scientists-in-the-making (AKA our students) in tow.

Sci Foo is conference held yearly at Google since 2005. Three guys –Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media, Timo Hannay of Nature and Chris DiBona of Google. (Note: Chris Rocks!!) – invite about 200 or so “thought leaders” involved with science in one way or another to come together for a two and a half-day free-for all for folks to learn from each other and share big (and small) ideas in a great space while being well fed.

There’s a video intro to the conference that was made in 2009 that will give you a feel for what it’s all about.

After you watch the video, you might not need to read any more of my blog posts but that’s your call.

That said, the video is somewhat misleading–it’s polished and well produced. Sci Foo is messy, frenetic even, with ideas and snippets and conversations, demonstrations, arguments, happening at once.  The only thing that is really produced is the food – and HOW! (I’ll give a flavor for the food when I’m actually there; I’m a big fan of food!)

How it works

The conference gets planned the first night in a kind of free-for-all. Attendees propose sessions; if they’re brave, self-centered, or prepared enough they write their session proposals into a slot on the big paper conference “board.”

Sci Foo Omniscient Conference Board

Then, for the rest of the time people go to sessions, hang out talking in the halls, or or on the Google campus. Or they’re eating. (Have I already mentioned I’m looking forward to the food?)

How I know…

At the 2007 SciFoo Conference.

I was lucky enough to be at the 2007 conference, covered in detail by my buddy Bora Zivkovic on Blog Around the Clock.

Gleaning from the Grist

The conference wiki for invitees gives glimpse of what’s to come. The invitee list  includes writers, inventors, artists, economists, graduate students and scientists galore from the States as well as a few from Europe and Latin America. Though it’s called “sci” foo – as in “science” – the invitees have their toes in design, technology, data, social science (behavior, learning, imagination), law, and there are even a few outliers like me who root themselves in education.

We have been encouraged to post session suggestions and get the conversation going in advance of arrival at the Googleplex.  Here’s a sampling of what’s been posted so far:

• How to feed 9 billion people in 2050
• Can the human brain be built by humans?
• How do people get interested?
• Fast forward/SloMo (sneak peek at a new cool camera –and a chance for people who come to the session to brainstorm neat experiments it could be used for)
• Star Trek Transporter: Coming Soon?
• Noninvasive Neural Prosthetics and Beyond…

These might not actually end up being sessions but they’re the kind of things people are thinking about leading up to the conference.

Putting SciFoo to Work for Me. (And You.)

I suggested a session on the wiki yesterday. If I still feel brave enough, and can make it to the session board while there are still slots available, I’m hoping to get some help with a big problem I’ve been chewing on in my work to change the face of science. Here’s what I proposed:

WANTED! A NEW METAPHOR (AKA ‘The Pipeline is the Problem’)

The dominant metaphor used to talk about becoming involved with science is the “pipeline.” This metaphor – which is used to describe the development of science skills through high school, college, graduate school and into the ranks of research and industry – leaves out MOST people. If you CAN do science but choose not to professionally you’ve “leaked out;” if you’re curious about science-y things but don’t want to be a scientist, science isn’t for you. And, I’d argue, worst of all this metaphor has served to entrench the gap in participation and achievement by students of color, students who are poor, and girls. The pipeline concept as been in place since the late 1950s – it’s time for a new one. Let’s do it at SciFoo! Brainstorm, draw, sketch, build a metaphor that can engage a broad and diverse public, capture people’s imagination and help change who gets to do science!

What better way than amidst a bunch of well-fed, geeked-up, super-brainiacs who are designers, engineers, artists and writers to come up with a solution to THIS problem?!

We’ll see what happens. I’ll keep you posted.

Next time, LIVE from GOOGLE!

-gabe