SBPWG:Discussion

Bay Area Science Festival
General Information about the festival: http://www.bayareascience.org/festival/

There are (at least) three main types of events we might consider:
 * A public forum/seminar (See 'wonder dialogues', we have a hold on the David Brower Center in Berkeley - 180 person capacity - for Nov 1st)
 * A hand-on carnival-style event with hands-on activities/demos (See 'Discovery Days' - a huge carnival being run at AT&T park on Nov 6th)
 * A science cafe - an informal discussion with a scientist at a bar/cafe (See the 'science pub crawl' being run on Nov 4th)

We might first explore a public forum event, as we have to act quickly on this if we'd like to keep the date/space. At the last working group meeting there was some ideas about how to make a forum more fun and interactive than a normal lecture format, such as making it into a 'game show'. (Megan Palmer)

Update
June 1st: Teleconference Brainstorming Ideas for the Festival

Teleconference attendees:
 * Megan Palmer
 * Connie Lee
 * Mike Fisher
 * Danielle Ercek
 * Jay Vowles

Public Forum Event v1
'''Please edit below with suggested speakers, topics and formats. Don't worry about changing things on this page - we can always revert to previous versions! Please also LIST YOUR NAME ALONGSIDE CHANGES so it is easy to track changes'''

Format General
 * option 1: start with short presentations from ~6 (?) speakers introducing synthetic biology basics, applications, promises/myths, social/ethical dimensions etc, then break out into individual rooms for more intimate q&a with the speakers (Megan Palmer)
 * option 2: presentation from a dynamic speaker who gives the synthetic biology overview, and then audience members have their choice of sessions to attend (Synthetic Biology and Human Health, Syn-biologically Produced Chemicals, Synthetic Biology vs. Nature, etc.) Each session includes short talks from researchers aimed at a general audience with plenty of room for questions.  Audience free to move from session to session.  (Mike Fisher)

Format Option 1 v1 (Megan Palmer)

I'm organizing as individual speakers/topics, but this could we have fewer speakers each talking about a subset of these topics (especially for the intro). Please feel free to change topics/ordering etc and suggest speakers who might be appropriate


 * Speaker/Topic 1: Why do we want to engineer/build with biology?
 * Speaker/Topic 2: What types of things are we building now? What types of things do we hope to build?
 * Speaker/Topic 3: How do we go about building/engineering biology? Philosophies and approaches (Top-Down, Bottom-Up)
 * Speaker/Topic 4: Who is building? (Highlight labs, industry, iGEM, DIY community)
 * Speaker/Topic 5: What are some of the perceived risks, and how are we working to address them? (could couple a science writer with a scientist?)
 * Speaker/Topic 6: What are some of the next big challenges?
 * Speaker/Topic 7: How can YOU get involved, learn more etc? (i.e. So you wanna be a biological engineer??)

Possible Speakers
 * Drew Endy (Megan Palmer)
 * Jay Keasling (can't make it)
 * Andrew Hessell (Megan P)
 * Eri Gentry or others from Biocurious/DIY community (perhaps the folks from open PCR?)
 * Stephen del Cardayre, LS9 (Mike Fisher)
 * Wendell Lim, UCSF (Mike F)

Title/Framing Brainstorming
 * Synthetic Biology: a beginner's guide to building with biology (Megan Palmer)
 * Tomorrow's Biology, Today (Mike Fisher)

Notes/Comments
 * It would be ideal to videotape presentations and get copies of materials that could be shared widely (for example, via uploading onto the SynBERC website) (Megan Palmer)

Examples/Materials of Other 'Synthetic Biology 101' Resources, Presentations etc to learn from
 * Ars Synthetic Synthetic Biology Primer (Megan P)
 * Andrew Hessell's Synthetic Biology Talk at Singularity University (Megan P)
 * KQED Quest Video (Megan P - this is a pretty great intro)

Additional Brainstorming
 * We might also consider doing a video followed by discussion. For example, following a viewing of the synthetic biology documentary
 * Based on the excerpts, that is going to be a neat film! (Mike Fisher)

Other Possible Topics/Framings
 * Life as we don't know it (Megan Palmer)
 * Creating life: What can we do? What should we do? (Megan Palmer)
 * Science Speed Dating (from group call June 1st) - have people go between rooms with different scientists
 * Design your own microbe (Megan)
 * Moderated panel discussion between scientists, ethicists, news people, govt officials / FBI ? (Megan)
 * Mini iGEM Jamboree (Megan)

Comments/Notes
 * The iGEM world finals are Nov 5-7 at MIT so may conflict with some events