[About the Foresight Institute]

[The Senior Associates Program]

The Senior Associates Program
and the 1996 Senior Associates Gathering

A letter from Dr. K. Eric Drexler prepared prior to the 1996 Gathering

(which also explains why you should become a Senior Associate and be ready to participate in the 1997 Gathering)

• Get the "big picture" on coming technologies and their effects: up-to-the-minute overviews and insights from those in the center of the technology maelstrom. It's off-the-record, so you'll hear what the experts really think, and you can feel free to state opinions that no one back home is ready for.
• Take our instant "Computer Camp" for some quick immersion training and hands-on experience in molecular modeling. Ralph Merkle and I, as well as other names you know from the Foresight Update, will be roaming instructors and coaches.
• Once you've gotten your hands virtually dirty with molecular modeling software, team up with fellow Senior Associates in a fast, fun, and informative Molecular Design and Construction Contest to design and build simple nanomolecular objects -- the NanoOlympics.
• Get the inside details on our first Web media battle, which marked the end of paper publishing domination of the nanotechnology debate: Foresight takes on Scientific American and, arguably, wins.
• Share your experiences in explaining nanotechnology to others, and hear how your fellow Senior Associates have fared in this challenging task. What works? What doesn't work?
• Go on a virtual tour of nanotechnology on the Web. We'll see the good, the bad, and the virtually ugly, with commentary on which sites contain dubious material and where little-known treasure troves of information can be found.
• Share your estimated date of the arrival of nanotechnology -- as defined by the winning of the Feynman Grand Prize -- with those of your fellow Senior Associates. Iterate based on the new information at the Gathering and on the one-on-one debates we'll all be having there. Update your personal expectations, goals, and plans in light of these estimates of the rate of nanotechnology progress.
• Enjoy a lively, fiery debate as we examine one of the major time-uncertainties in the advent of nanotechnology: will control software be the stumbling block that delays nanotech capabilities?
• Make the professional contacts that could lead to you personally working in a nanotechnology-related field two, ten or fifteen years from now.
• And perhaps most important: come meet your soon-to-be best friends. If you're like me, you're closest to those who share your goals on important topics like nanotechnology. My own closest friends are those I met years ago at special-interest conferences --- they draw great people from all over the world. Once you find them, agree to rendezvous every year at the Foresight gathering.

Postscript:

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