 No, my panel on DIYbio was not chosen.
That’s the “shucks”.
The great news is that Christina Agapakis’ panel “Designing Living Things” did get selected! She’s got a great crowd on her panel: Patrick Boyle, Daisy Ginsberg, Jason Kelly, and Sri Kosuri. A veritable who’s-who in synthetic bio and synthetic aesthetics. It’s a great follow-on to Venter’s talk in 2011. It’s going to be a very interesting panel indeed, and I won’t miss it for anything. And neither should you.
Indeed, Design was one of the ideas I thought would have legs, but I just didn’t have the chops, cred, or connections to have pulled it off, so I am glad that Christina took the leap of faith and set off to organize this panel.
That’s the “yay”.
As for some other interesting science panels:
- Ariel Waldman is running a panel “Get Excited and Make Things with Science” about Science Hack Day. I think this is a better segue from traditional SXSW fodder to science hacking (DIYbio might still be a large leap?).
- Christopher Mims and Michael Coren are running a duo-talk about “OpenScience: Hacking the Scientific Method”
Check out the other sessions in this post on SXSW.com.
 Here’s another speaker for my proposed panel for SXSW [http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/10348] on DIYbio.
James King is a speculative designer working in the field of biological science to investigate the implications of future biotechnologies. He collaborates with scientists and works between the lab and studio to design potential applications for their research. Together they imagine what might be possible if technologies developed in the lab become adopted by people in their everyday lives. This results in objects, films and images that are exhibited in order to elicit debate on the desirable and undesirable qualities of future biotechnologies.
I first met him at iGEM 09, where he was part of the Cambridge team, who developed pigmented E coli, called “E. chromi”. Together with Daisy Ginsberg, he built an amazing (multi-) award-winning fantasy about the bio-political-cultural future of coloured organisms (and coloured poop). He also speculates on the measurement of what is life (Cellularity) and explored the meaning of artificial meat.
What drives him is his curiosity “to understand what biotech will really mean in everyday life.” I asked him what he’d be doing if he weren’t a speculative designer. He said, he’d actually want to “spend half my time as an interaction designer working with less-speculative technologies for today’s tech companies. I’d be doing more of that.”
When I asked him what the panelists should tell the SXSW crowd about the future and impact DIYbio. He pointed out that, “at moment, DIYBio is about demystifying biotechnology. Lifting back the curtain and showing people that its not magic and certainly not macabre. I’m not sure what the role of the citizen-scientist is in the future and whether they’ll be able to compete with large, well-funded labs, but the DIYBio community is a melting pot of designers, hackers, PHDs, ethicists and from this, new and exciting ways of working are bound to emerge.”
I’m looking forward to adding James perspective to the panel.
 As you might be aware, I proposed a panel for SXSW [http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/10348] on DIYbio. One person who I think epitomizes DIYbio is Cathal Garvey. He’s builds instruments (the Dremelfuge), gives numerous talks (here at Ignite Dublin), gives workshops, compiled a practical guide, and even applied for a license from the Irish EPA. You can’t go wrong learning from his adventures in Indie Biotech.
He is one of the panelists I’ve chosen, and he’s agreed to come (if he can make it). I asked him a few questions about DIYbio and the panel. Here are his replies:
What drives you to do what you do?
“The most amazing work is done by the passionate, and it’s hard to be passionate about science when you have to fit into the straight-jacket of a profit-driven or grant-dependent organisation. Some of the biggest problems out there are both economically unviable to solve and are fundamentally boring, meaning that it’s hard for either traditional category of science to address them. I want to have the power to address the things that matter to me, and to see others do the same.”
Why do you think we should tell the SXSW crowd about the future and impact DIYbio?
“I’d like people to realise that biotech is going to become commonplace someday, just like mechanics, electronics, and computer programming. That this means two things: Firstly, that countries that are burdening biotech with scaremonger-fed legal systems or overly protective “Intellectual Property” are hurting their present and future in this wave of innovation. Secondly, that now’s the time for people to press for openness and accessibility in this technology, by taking part or supporting the work of DIYers who aim to kick-start Open Source biology.”
What would you be doing if you weren’t being a bio tinkerer?
“I’d probably still be pursuing a “traditional” career path in academic science, hoping that in ten or twenty years I’d have my own lab in which to tinker and students to do it for me. I’m too impatient now that I realise there are other, faster ways to choose what I research.”
What’s the one thing someone can do before they come to our panel to prepare?
“Read about biotech, life science and genetics on wikipedia. As with any engineering or science panel, I imagine we’ll bury ourselves in jargon sometimes and have to dig our way back out. If people know what DNA is, how it leads to proteins in cells, and what that means for how biotechnology works, they’ll be ready for the more abstract discussion on the implications and potential of biotechnology.”
Anything else you think might be relevant to help someone decide about the applicability of our panel at SXSW?
“Any tech conference needs to prioritise present and future technology concerns in a good balance. At present, silicon is king and programming for online social webapps is the big trend, but “Big Social” is already feeding into and morphing into the next-big-thing; massively distributed empowerment. Biotechnology, as a tech platform, comes pre-loaded with distribution and personal empowerment; I predict a dovetail between what we’re seeing happen right now and where biotech is going to enter the public awareness. SXSW would be doing itself a big favour by presenting DIYbio and Open Source Biotech this year, while it’s all coming together so quickly.”
What do you think of Cathal? Let us know!
Folks, @thisischristina (and writer at SciAm’s Oscillator) and I both submitted panel proposals for SXSW 2012. We’re going to need some help getting into the program.
Voting is from 15aug to 02sep with program announcements starting end of October. [see Panel Picker pages]
Save this link [http://www.molecularist.com/tag/sxsw2012] to keep up with info about this process – I’ll be interviewing speakers, going more in-depth about the topics, and more.
UPDATE 09aug11 – corrected to SXSW 2012
UPDATE 26aug11 – Here’s my panel [http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/10348] and Christina’s panel [http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/10478]
 I’ve done it. I’ve submitted a proposal to SXSW.
Alas, I was only able to submit one, despite all the ideas I had (anyone going to submit others, want to coordinate?)
I can edit this until 05 August, then I guess the voting begins. Next step for me is to determine if it’s a panel or solo or what. I don’t think I represent a typical DIYbiologist enough to go solo, so hence my preference for leading a panel with some of you hot-shots (you know who you are).
See current proposal below (with comments):
Title: DIYbio: hackspaces, open source & f*ck yeah ethics
Event: SXSW Interactive 2012
Organizer: Charlie Schick
Description: Humanity has been messing with biology for millennia. In the last 50 years, the tools have advanced to where we can design new remixes of organisms to make things for us, such as fuel, drugs, and the fresh smell of rain. What’s more, the open source and hackspace tinkering culture of the tech world has spilled over to create a nascent and vibrant community of do-it-yourself biologists. this session bring you up to speed with what DIYbio is, how you can get involved, and what are the resources available. [CS: Obviously I need to flesh this out. If this is a panel, I have a list of folks I'd like to be on it to represent the community (see supporting material below). If this is a workshop, then it'll be a about tinkering.]
Questions answered:
1. What is DIYbio?
2. How can I get involved in DIYbio?
3. What are the resrouces I can access – info and instruction, space, pepole, events?
4. What is the future of making things thorugh biology?
5. Why is this important to the SXSWi crowd?
Level: Beginner
Supporting material: http://diybio.org, http://genspace.org/, https://www.facebook.com/BioCurious, http://openpcr.org/
Category: Emerging Technology / Mobile [CS: Best category I could find. Not sure why mobile is still considered "emerging".]
Tags: diybio, hackerspaces, science
And, hat tip to @100ideas and the folks from the DIYbio Continental Congress for the “f*ck yeah ethics” in the title.
I’ve been thinking of what to do at SXSW Interactive next year around Biology.
Biology at SXSW? It’s not as far-fetched as you’d think. The trends I see are the new bio hackspaces popping up, all the open source feeling around sharing bio tools, and so much discussion around design in biology. While SXSW Interactive is really a digerati mecca, I think there’s space for spill over into biology.
And it’s not like SXSW hasn’t been courting the scientists. For example, in 2010, there was a panel on citizen science. Then in 2011, Craig Center spoke and there was a panel on biomimicry.
My current (very unformed) thoughts are that we could have a Designing Biology panel, covering synthbio, synthetic aesthetics, DIYbio, practical microbiology, folks biology, and food design. If we want to go further, we could organize some sort of workshop with folks from GenSpace, BioCurious, or the BioBus doing what they do well – getting folks excited about Biology (maybe even at a local Uni in case the BioBus can’t be there). We could also have a screening party of bio vids, such as the Synthbio Documentary.
Ambitious? Absolutely. But we need to shoot for something. And seems this might end up with many moving parts and need proper project management, marketing, and so forth (cross that bridge when we get there).
What do you folks think? Suggestions and comments, please!
I want to at least suggest something for the SXSW panel picker by July 15th (unless someone has already suggested something).
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