| [About the Foresight Institute] | [The Senior Associates Program] |
| October 18-20, 1996 | Topics and activities | Other Information |
|---|---|---|
| Friday, October 18 Saturday, October 19 Sunday, October 20 | Welcoming
Reception Introductions and Overviews Hands-on Molecular Modeling Communicating nanotechnology Taking Action The Afterglow | Gathering
Registration & Details Report and Pictorial in Update 27 |
On your badge, put your guesstimate:
8 - 10 PM: Welcoming Reception
In what year will the Feynman Grand Prize be won?
On the tenth anniversary for Foresight and Engines of Creation, Eric looks at past successes and those that still need to be achieved.
(Eric Drexler)
10:30 - 10:45 AM: Beverage break. Check out other Senior Associates' guesstimates.Before we can build, we need designs. Ralph surveys work in this growing research community and updates us on his computational experiments at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.
(Ralph Merkle)
Tracking and interpreting the expanding body of nanotechnology-related work is a tough job -- Jim and Ted guide us through the maze.
(Jim Lewis, Ted Kaehler)
Our morning speakers and the audience take on a critical aspect of this question: Will control software be the crucial problem on the path to nanotechnology? Winning the Feynman Grand Prize will require building the equivalent of a nanorobot. Today robotics is hindered by control software issues. Will this hold nanotechnology back, too?
Split into teams and get your hands virtually dirty in nano-scale design and "construction." We'll have hardware, software and roaming instruction by Computer Camp Coaches Eric Drexler, Ralph Merkle, and others.
Actual Designs by a Senior Associate
While your teammates get trained, make your personal "poster", in tandem post it, then tour the room and see who's here. Add your name to the posters of those you'd like to meet. Topics to cover in your poster:
3:00 - 3:30 PM: Dessert Break featuring Seidler's Sinful Snacks and Tremendously Tempting Treats. Tour the personal posters and start connecting up with the Senior Associates you want to meet.
- What impact do you want nanotechnology or Foresight to have had on your life in 5, 10, 20 years?
- What do you want to accomplish personally for nanotechnology and other Foresight interest areas?
- What kinds of people do you want to meet at this gathering?
Rejoin your team to design and "build" simple molecular objects.
5:00 PM: Dinner on your own, in self-assembling groups. (See the restaurant list for places within walking distance.)Offline virtual tour of the Web's nanotechnology sites. The good, the bad, the excellent, the unhelpful.
Somewhere out there are hordes of bright high school kids who deserve to have their minds saved from media sludge. We're here to help! Elaine wants to use this project to win the hearts and minds of the innocent youth and lure them into college careers aimed at nanotechnology. Let's get these kids ready to work on nanotech products. Not only will the kids thank us for this, but in the years to come-- as we do technical recruiting for our nanotech start-ups -- we'll thank ourselves.
(Elaine Tschorn)
For the first ten years, Foresight had to rely on the media to get its message out. Foresight's recent Web debate with Scientific American shows how this is changing for the better.
(Lew Phelps)
10:15 - 10:45 AM: Beverage BreakCore dump of nanotech communication experience. The key: knowing what your listener is ready to hear.
(Ed Niehaus, Chris Peterson, Gayle Pergamit)
Besides his computational nanotechnology work for NASA, Al runs a wonderful site highlighting what nanotechnology can do for a popular Senior Associate goal: space settlement. We'll hear how successful this meme is becoming, and what this means for computational nanotechnology at NASA.
(Al Globus)
Full size versions of paintings available at http://science.nas.nasa.gov/Services/Education/SpaceSettlement/70sArt/art.html
Noon - 1:30 PM: Probably-More-Than-We-Ought-to-Eat Big Buffet Smorgasbord Sunday Brunch (included).Group discussion of your experience in spreading these memes. Successes and failures at conveying what nanotechnology is, why it's important, how it should be included in plans for the future. What kind of people "get it" and which don't: scientists, engineers, businesspeople, doctors? People in positions of authority in science and technology, e.g. your thesis advisor, the head of your lab. The role of paper and web info. Anecdotes and observations.
As the trickle of nanotechnology activity becomes a flood, we need a way to organize and access it: an Information Central for nanotechnology. To find your niche in nanotechnology, join us in reshaping this information flow into useable form.
(Robert Armas)
You'd expect the biggest beneficiaries of the web to be new, multidisciplinary fields like ours, and you'd be right. We've seen tremendous payoffs to our field already. The opportunities here are boggling. Help Foresight boggle the world with the quantity and quality of our presentations in this new medium.
(Jim Lewis, Foresight Webmaster)
Yet another idea born at last year's meeting has taken shape. Richard explains the goal, how to help, and how to get the Report into the hands of those who should see it.
(Richard Terra)
3:00 - 3:15 Beverage Break. Take this opportunity to give your name to leaders of projects you'd like to work on.Ten years ago, Engines of Creation helped promote the goal of hypertext publishing. Now we're on the verge of getting the features we need to debate important issues, e.g. nanotechnology technical and policy options. We'll get a progress report on what's available, what's soon to be available, and when Senior Associates can start demonstration debates, with the goal of setting a new, higher quality standard for serious debate.
We'll break into groups, each examining a "headline" announcing a nanotechnology-related future event.
Placing yourself in that timeframe, look back and project a scenario for how this event came to occur.
Sample headline: "US Announces Apollo-style Nanotech Project: We'll have an assembler in my term, vows President"
- What events led up to it?
- Who did, or did not do, what action?
- What did the people in this room do to make this event occur?
- Finally: should we try to maximize the chance of this scenario, or minimize it?
Gathering conclusions, requests, pats on the back, and farewells. Promises to meet again next year, same time, same place.
If you are not yet a senior associate, here
is the application form. The Senior Associate meeting is off-the-record; no
media coverage or taping is planned. Dress is informal. There is a $95 fee to cover the direct costs of participation.
This price includes a reception on Friday, bagels and coffee in the morning,
some refreshments at breaks, and 2 lunches. Direct questions to inform@foresight.org.
Senior Associates attending the Gathering are responsible for making
their own travel and accommodations arrangements.
The conference is at the Holiday Inn, Palo Alto/Stanford:
FAX (415) 327-7362
| For ongoing nanotechnology information, Register for a |  |
| To help prepare for nanotechnology | Make a Donation to Support Foresight |
| To
play a key role in Foresight's efforts | Become a Senior Associate |
