Announcements

Science Hack Day Ambassadors

A few months ago, we announced an open call for anyone who is interested in organizing a Science Hack Day (anywhere around the planet) to apply to the Science Hack Day Ambassador Program. The program funds 10 soon-to-be organizers to attend the upcoming Science Hack Day San Francisco to experience the event first-hand and connect with other organizers. We're super excited to welcome these 10 science hackers to San Francisco next month. We're also happy to be joined by 2 additional soon-to-be organizers Jun Yin (from San Diego) and Jacob Shiach (from Houston), who are able to make it to the SF event.

Interested in collaborating with, attending or supporting one of these Science Hack Days? We've listed each organizer's contact information below. There are also many other cities planning a Science Hack Day that are listed on http://sciencehackday.pbworks.com. Want to organize a Science Hack Day in your city? Check out our How-To Guide.

Science Hack Day Berlin (Germany)
Igor Schwarzmann is an urbanized knowmad since 1983. He wants to know everything about everything. Also: co-founder of Third Wave and the Cognitive Cities Conference.
Contact @zeigor or schwarzmann@gmail.com.

Science Hack Day Cape Town (South Africa)
Carolina Odman is a European astrophysicist turned scientist for development (@unawe) aspiring hacker and loves outreach. Now in South Africa for good, she is the director of academic development at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences - Next Einstein Initiative (AIMS_NEI). She is also a compulsive amateur photographer and loves the power of science to broaden the mind.
Contact @carolune or scihackcpt@gmail.com

Science Hack Day Chicago (United States)
Stuart Lynn started off life studying Mathematical physics at Edinburgh University before deciding astronomy was prettier and easier to explain in bars and obtained a PHD in astrophysics. He currently works out of the Adler Planetarium as a developer on the Zooniverse project and is passionate about getting the everyone involved in doing real science. When not working he enjoys hacking on anything thats to hand and working on fun side projects.
Contact @stuart_lynn or stuart.lynn@gmail.com

Science Hack Day Dublin (Ireland)
David McKeown is a maker of things. Doctor of stuff. He runs the Irish Robotics Club and is partial to sugary sweets.
Contact @robots_ie or science-hackday-dublin@googlegroups.com.

Science Hack Day Mexico City (Mexico)
Jack Remond is a grumpy manager by day and part-time entrepreneur by night. Jack is an electronic engineering and rocket scientist trying to control chaos (so far... chaos is winning). He is co-founder of Estudio13 and Bellusorbis. He twitts (rarely) about #openspace #innovation and #grumpyness.
Contact @jjremond or jjremond@hotmail.com.

Science Hack Day Nairobi (Kenya)
Morris Mwanga is a CS graduate student at Kennesaw State University, a programmer, an artificial intelligence researcher and an electronics hacker. His blog can be found at nerd.co.ke/morris.
Contact mmwanga@kennesaw.edu.

Science Hack Day Reykjavik (Iceland)
Brian Suda is an informatician residing in Reykjavik, Iceland. He's written a book on the topic of charts and graphs entitled Designing with Data. His own little patch of Internet can be found at suda.co.uk where many past projects and crazy ideas can be found.
Contact @briansuda or brian@suda.co.uk

Science Hack Day Sao Paulo (Brazil)
Fabius Leineweber is a chemical engineer trying to understand biological complexity through computers. He also collaborates in digital art projects and philosophy of mind studies. His goal is to improve health awareness with science and technology.
Contact usfabi@gmail.com.

Science Hack Day Tokyo (Japan)
Satoka Fujita is a techie who loves her camera, computers, android phone and lovely boy friend. Always looking for something new and fun, also the first generation of Tokyo Hackerspace. She speaks Japanese, English and a bit of C, none of them fluent any more though.
Contact @lhuga.

Science Hack Day Vancouver (Canada)
Amber Didow oversees a design team that develops exhibitions for the Science Centre in Vancouver, Canada. She has been working in informal arts and science education organizations for many years in the areas of programming, outreach, events and exhibit development. When Amber's not working she's making and when she's not making you'll find her working on her Masters in Community Development.
Contact adidow@scienceworld.ca.

Get excited and make things with science hackers around the world

Hailing from Brazil, Canada, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, South Africa and the United States, the 10 scholars of the Science Hack Day Ambassador Program have been selected. The Science Hack Day Ambassador Program funds these 10 individuals, who are planning to organize a Science Hack Day in their city, to experience a Science Hack Day event first-hand. This November, all 10 will arrive in San Francisco to experience the 48-hours of intense collaboration, hacking and building 'cool stuff' at Science Hack Day.

These 10 science hackers and over a dozen more who are organizing Science Hack Days around the world need your ideas, interest and help. Connect with them on http://sciencehackday.pbworks.com. Don't see a Science Hack Day listed for your city yet? Create one! There are open instructions on how to create a Science Hack Day in your town at http://sciencehackday.com/howto.

Science Hack Day Goes Global

Science Hack Day announced at OSCON, O'Reilly's open source convention, a new initiative to encourage the creation of Science Hack Days in cities around the world. The initiative launches with a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to Institute For The Future, a non-profit think tank supporting the project led by IFTF Research Affiliate and Science Hack Day SF creator, Ariel Waldman.

Thanks to this generous support, 10 people interested in organizing a Science Hack Day from around the world will be selected to win a scholarship for a trip to Science Hack Day San Francisco, occurring November 12-13, 2011, where they'll experience first-hand how Science Hack Day works and connect with a global community of organizers. This Science Hack Day Ambassador Program will award individuals who are motivated and planning to organize a Science Hack Day in their city. Open source instructions for how to create a Science Hack Day in your city and how to apply to the Science Hack Day Ambassador Program by August 31, 2011 are available at http://sciencehackday.com.

Science Hack Day is a 48 hour all-night event that brings together designers, developers, scientists and people with good ideas in the same physical space for a brief but intense period of collaboration, hacking, and building ‘cool stuff’. A hack is a quick solution to a problem – maybe not the most elegant solution, but often the cleverest. On the web, mashups are a common example of hacking: mixing up data from different sources in new and interesting ways. Science Hack Day aims to bridge the gap between the science, technology and design industries to encourage future collaboration, community building and general social awareness of one another. The mission of Science Hack Day is to get excited and make things with science.

"Science should be disruptively accessible," said Waldman. "Science Hack Day empowers people from a variety of different backgrounds to explore, participate in, and build new ways of interacting with and contributing to science."