Science Foo Camp (Sci Foo)
Science Foo Camp is an annual event Digital Science organises with Google and O’Reilly in Palo Alto. Sci Foo is particularly unusual among scientific conferences in three ways: It is invitation-only; the invitees come from many different areas of science rather than one subject (such as physics, chemistry or biology); and, the meeting has no fixed agenda, the invited scientists, technologists and policymakers set the conference program during the conference itself, based on their shared professional interests and enthusiasms.
Amongst the truly international mix of attendees, there are always a handful of Digital Science folk, including some real Sci Foo veterans and some total newbies. The conference follows the “unconference” format. There is no predefined agenda, instead, the attendees create one collaboratively, with little, if any, constraints on what can be discussed.
As you can see from the evidence below, a great time is always had by all! Don’t forget to follow the hashtag #SciFoo for more details.
In the absence of a physical event, in early 2021 SciFoo alumni participated in a series of lightning talks to share what they have been working on over the past year and for the first time, these are available publicly to view. You can see all the talks on YouTube here and for more information on Sci Foo, read our Head of PR Alex Jackson’s great blog post on his first visit to Sci Foo in 2019 here and see a 2018 video we created asking scientists what the future holds.
The next Sci Foo will be a virtual event held in October 2021. Please email Amarjit Myers (amarjit@digital-science.com), one of the organisers for further information.
Sci Foo brings together almost 300 people from around the world who are doing groundbreaking work in diverse areas of science and technology.
If you had 1 billion dollars to spend on just one project, what would it be? Here’s how an astrobiologist and Nobel Laureate, amongst others, would spend the money.
How do we feed 9 billion people? How can we reduce our carbon dioxide emissions? Campers at the 2010 meeting came up with a variety of answers.
Which technology will have the greatest impact in the next 10 years: the internet, genomics or geo-engineering?
We asked a skeptic, an internet guru, a philosopher and some scientists about their worries for the future.
Each year Google, Nature and O’Reilly Media invite some of the sharpest thinkers to California to Science Foo Camp
