Science Hack Day San Francisco
Save the date – Science Hack Day returns to San Francisco on November 12-13, 2016. The event will be held at General Assembly, located at 225 Bush Street in San Francisco (next to the BART/Muni Montgomery Street Station). Registration will open ~6 weeks before the event – we’ll update this post when we have an exact day/time. We’re SO excited to see you all – this will be our 7th annual event!
Demos begin at Science Hack Day SF 2015!
Science Hack Day, how I love thee – let me count the ways. This was the largest Science Hack Day yet with 225 attendees! We also had our largest percentage of new-to-SHD participants this year, underlining that after six annual events we are far from slowing down the science hacking. It’s still the overwhelming, quirky, fascinating, humble and delightful event it was when we started it back in 2010 and it is truly wonderful to watch each new year of science hackers run with it. The best part of Science Hack Day is that I can never come even close to predicting what people will create. I love that. Science Hack Day is inherently about the unexpected, the serendipitous, the unlikely and the unexplored.
Save the date! Registration for Science Hack Day SF 2015 will open on Wednesday, September 23 at 12pm Pacific. We’ll post the link to the registration on http://sf.sciencehackday.org and http://twitter.com/sciencehackday at that time.
Update: Registration is live! Go to http://sciencehackday2015.eventbrite.com
Science Hack Day SF 2015 will be taking place on October 24-25, 2015 at GitHub HQ. We’ll be posting more details on this site as they become available.
If you have any questions, or if your organization is interested in sponsoring the event, please contact Ariel Waldman at [email protected].
Demos begin at Science Hack Day SF 2014!
I’m still in the afterglow of Science Hack Day. This year was our 5th Science Hack Day in San Francisco – and the 40th worldwide! It has been heartwarming to see the community grow with each event. Two of my favorite things to see (as an organizer) each year are: 1) watching people reconnect with friends and collaborators they’ve made at the event – the hugs and excitement are really sweet, and, 2) seeing a large group of hands go up when we ask the audience if it’s their first time at the event. I’m really proud to run an ongoing event that has an amazing group of “regulars” as well as bright-eyed “newbies” collaborating with one another.
2013 people’s choice award winners, photo by Matt Biddulph
Registration is now open at http://sciencehackday2014.eventbrite.com!
We’re excited to announce our 5th annual Science Hack Day San Francisco! The event will take place October 4-5, 2014 at GitHub‘s new amazing HQ (2nd & Brannan). Stay tuned to http://twitter.com/sciencehackday for all announcements.
Mark your calendars! We’ll be opening up registration for Science Hack Day SF in two waves this year. Registration will open up on Tuesday, August 26 at 12pm Pacific and Sunday, September 7 at 12pm Pacific. The link for where to register will be added on this post and at http://twitter.com/sciencehackday.
As always are looking for sponsors to help support this free, volunteer-run event. Please download our sponsor prospectus and email [email protected] to get in touch!
Science Hack Day SF attendees inside the Morrison Planetarium, photo by Matt Biddulph
Wow. The 4th annual Science Hack Day in San Francisco was our most epic yet! I was ecstatic to bring the most science hackers yet (200+) to the largest venue yet – the California Academy of Sciences! Each year of Science Hack Day SF has brought some of the most unexpected creations to life. Each year, I’m asked by reporters what I expect to see at Science Hack Day, and I struggle to explain that it’s simply not something you can predict – and that’s precisely what I love about it. When I talk to audiences about the beauty of it, I evoke a quote from John Peel that sums it up to me: “At the heart of anything good there should be a kernel of something undefinable. And if you can define it, or claim to be able to define it, then in a sense you’ve missed the point.”
Each year, Science Hack Day San Francisco is organized by a group of volunteers who do awesome work on top of helping us all hack science:
Jun Axup
Jun is interested in changing the way science is conducted and perceived in society. She is a chemical biologist in biotech developing antibody-based cancer therapeutics. Jun is also the founder of Biochemies, a science education/outreach startup that makes cute DNA plush toys.
Matt Biddulph
Matt is a software developer, data tinkerer and hardware hacker. A few years ago he co-founded Dopplr, the travel social network. He recently relocated to San Francisco to start a new company called Product Club, after a couple of years living in Berlin and London. He is also the official photographer of Science Hack Day SF.
Rose Broome
Rose creates new technology for social good. She is the founder of HandUp, a direct payment app for homeless people and neighbors in need (handup.us). In addition to co-organizing Science Hack Day, Rose runs the SF Homeless Innovation Meetup Group and a poetry group focused on the work of 13th century Sufi poet Hafez.
Ian Fung
Ian is a computer scientist and security enthusiast. He currently works at Fastly, a content delivery network specializing in caching dynamic content. In his spare time he plays with drones and tries to replace as many parts of his life with software as possible. One of his passions is organizing events to facilitate collaboration and the open exchange of ideas. In addition to Science Hack Day, he also organizes an information security conference called BSides SF.
Matt Ganucheau
Matt is a developer, designer, teacher and musician, but at the end of the day calls himself an Artist. Regardless of the title, he strives to create environments that foster empathy, curiosity and introspection through the use of technology. Matt works at the California Academy of Sciences as a Digital Learning Specialist.
Ariel Waldman
Ariel focuses on making space exploration more open through hacking. Outside of Science Hack Day, she is working on projects with Institute For The Future, the National Academy of Sciences’ committee on human spaceflight, and her own Spacehack.org. She recently submitted her first NSF proposal to try to go to Antarctica (fingers crossed!).
Nic Weidinger
Nic loves to make tools for making tools. He spends his days thinking about the potential of humanity at the Institute for the Future. On the weekends he works on projects like WikiSeat (an open tool for maker education), 3D printers, or a new general-purpose bio science tool (think Arduino or 3D printer, but for biology). Nic is also on the board for the San Francisco Institute of Possibility and a co-organizer for Science Hack Day.
Also, special thanks to Ruth Klotz-Chamberlin at the California Academy of Sciences for helping us coordinate the event. In addition to seeing all of us in lab coats, you’ll see many of our friends in red shirts throughout the event who are also volunteering their time to help make it awesome! Many of these friends have helped organize Science Hack Day in previous years. The San Francisco event will also be welcoming six Science Hack Day Ambassadors from Madagascar, Canada, Lebanon, Myanmar, Brazil and India.
California Academy of Sciences’ living roof, by Tom Coates
Science Hack Day will be returning to San Francisco in 2013!
Where: California Academy of Sciences
When: September 28-29, 2013
Registration is open at http://sciencehackday2013.eventbrite.com
The science hackers gather for launch, photo by Matt Biddulph
It’s been two weeks since the third San Francisco edition of Science Hack Day and visions of particle collisions are still dancing in my head. 150 science hackers came together over the weekend to create brilliant mashups of imagination and mischief. Even more than all the delightful hacks that emerge over the 24 consecutive hours, I absolutely love the people that make up Science Hack Day each year. Now on our third year, the beginning of the event has become such a joyous occasion – veteran science hackers hug each other, many not having had a chance to see one another since the previous year; newcomers quickly strike up conversations with one another over percolating ideas. What excites me the most are the potential serendipitous sparks that may ignite by having such a diverse group of people in the same place. No other event that I know of can bring together U.S. coastguards, fashion designers, environmental lawyers, particle physicists, futurists, novelists, watercolorists, molecular biologists, high school students, and roboticists to see what they can prototype, together, in 24 consecutive hours. People flew in from as far as Kenya and Ireland to attend (keep an eye out for Science Hack Day Nairobi & Science Hack Day Dublin in 2013!).
Update: We’re sold out for 2012! You can still register to be on the waitlist.
Save the date! Science Hack Day is coming back to San Francisco for 2012 (our third year)! Here are the details:
When: November 3-4, 2012
Where: Hot Studio, 585 Howard Street (at 2nd St.), San Francisco
We’ll open up registration in September, so stay tuned to @sciencehackday on Twitter. In case you missed it, here’s what Science Hack Day SF was like last year.
We’re now looking for sponsors – please email [email protected] if you’re interested in supporting this super awesome event!