Science Hack Day is a 48-hour-all-night event where anyone excited about making weird, silly or serious things with science comes together in the same physical space to see what they can prototype within 24 consecutive hours. Designers, developers, scientists and anyone who is excited about making things with science is welcome to attend – no experience in science or hacking is necessary, just an insatiable curiosity.
People organically form multidisciplinary teams over the course of a weekend: particle physicists team up with designers, marketers join forces with open source rocket scientists, writers collaborate with molecular biologists, and developers partner with school kids. Science Hack Day is inherently about mashing up ideas, mediums, industries and people to create sparks for future ideas, collaborations and inspirations to launch from.
In 2011, I was awarded a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to instigate the global expansion of Science Hack Day. 10 awesome “ambassadors” from around the world were selected to attend the Science Hack Day I organize each year in San Francisco so as to experience the event first-hand and create one in their home city. The Science Hack Day ambassadors flew in from Brazil, Canada, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, South Africa and within the United States. To date, Science Hack Day has taken place in 10 cities around the globe and is being planned in dozens more. Anyone is welcome to create a Science Hack Day in their city – there’s an “open source” set of guidelines for how to get started.
Thanks to a grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, 5 more amazing ambassadors will be selected from around the world to attend Science Hack Day San Francisco in 2013. Applications are open until May 1!
“Mission Control” at Science Hack Day SF 2011 (photo by Matt Biddulph):
