| Accelerating
Change 2005 kicks off in 10 days - register
now!
Don't miss your chance to meet Vernor Vinge, Ray
Kurzweil, Esther Dyson, Steve
Jurvetson, David Fogel, George
Gilder, and our 40
other world-class speakers and 300 forward-looking attendees
at AC2005! ATimes
readers can register for only $400 using the special AC2005-ATIMES
registration code by 6pm on September 12.
Themes:
AI and IA
Artificial intelligence (AI), broadly defined, improves
the intelligence, capacity, and autonomy of our technology. Intelligence
amplification (IA) empowers human beings and their social, political,
and economic environments. Read
more ...
Speakers
Accelerating
Change speakers emphasize a mix of analysis, forecasting, and
action plans and examples, using multidisciplinary inquiry and a
synthesis of technical, entrepreneurial, and social development
dialogs. Don't want to miss your favorite speaker? See the conference
schedule.
Speakers Class of '05
Attendees
Many of our past attendees have told us that while they
think the speakers at Accelerating Change are great, what
they love most are the in-between times when they get to meet and
talk with the other unique attendees. We are proud of attracting
intelligent, interesting, and action-oriented individuals to our
events! This year, we have even more interactive networking opportunities
than ever, with our Birds
of a Feather Sessions and Participant
Statements. If you haven't already, be sure
to submit your participant statement by September 12th.
 Tutorials
AC2005's
Future
Academy professional development tutorials provide skill-building
experience for our entrepreneurial, technology-adept, future-minded,
and innovation-oriented attendees. They are led by successful, forward-thinking
experts, good at helping you gain high-value ideas and processes
in a small group setting.This year's sessions cover topics in Foresight
Consulting (with Peter Bishop, Tom
Conger, and George Gilder), Investment
(with Mike Korns), and Second
Life (with Cory Ondrejka and Linden Lab staff).
Tech Night
Tech Night, our Friday evening reception,
early registration, and technology
demos (with no-host dinner afterward), will take place on September
16th from 6-9 PM at SAP Labs in Palo Alto, next door to Xerox PARC
and two miles from Stanford University (Driving
Directions). Tech Night is a free event for all AC2005 participants
and provides a great opportunity to engage with the creators of
some impactful new technologies. SAP Labs is an architecturally
innovative building in a beautiful setting, making it an ideal place
for our conference warm-up. If you are planning on attending Tech
Night, please e-RSVP to Iveta
Brigis.
Pictures of SAP Labs and the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab's
unveiling of Buddy Buzz at Tech Night 2004:
200
Free Advance Copies of Singularity is Near
 Keynote
speaker and internationally-renowned futurist Ray Kurzweil
will present free signed advance copies of his upcoming book, The
Singularity is Near, which will
be released nationally four days after the conference, to the first
200 registrants at Accelerating Change 2005. Additional
copies will also be available for sale to conference participants.
One of 2005's most anticipated new books, The Singularity is
Near extensively makes the provocative case for accelerating
and increasingly human-surpassing technological and computer advances
in coming decades, and proposes a global "phase transition"
circa 2040 where many forms of higher human thinking may be exceeded
by global computing systems.
Kurzweil
argues these systems will be seen not as separate from us, but as
our increasingly personalized electronic extensions. If true, how
can we ensure this will be an economically productive, socially
stabilizing, and individually empowering transition? What are the
major risks to be avoided? How do we protect the freedoms of those
not interested in participating in this "digital future?"
What might prevent or delay this scenario?
Attendees
will have ample opportunity to explore these issues in an extended
Q&A with Ray at AC2005, moderated by science radio personality
Moira Gunn, host of NPR’s Tech
Nation. Mr. Kurzweil is an inductee of the National Inventors
Hall of Fame, a winner of the Lemelson-MIT prize and the National
Medal of Technology, and the founder of nine very successful technology
companies. His internationally best-selling 1999 book, The
Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence
has been published in nine languages.
What's
Next in Commercial or Consumer Robotics? Win A Roomba at AC2005
 Robotics
pioneer iRobot has
donated five Roombas
to Accelerating Change 2005. We will give away these ingenious
machines for the best 100-word (or less) answers to the question
"What's Next in Commercial or Consumer Robotics?"
by AC2005 attendees by 2pm on Sunday, Sept 18th. These brief, paragraph-length
ideas can propose new commercial or consumer robots, new features
for future Roombas, new and untapped market segments for existing
or future robots, new technologies, or any other innovation you
think needs to be or will soon be addressed. The time horizon can
be as short as next year, and should be limited to ten years. You
can discuss research, development, production, marketing, or any
other aspect of the business model. All ideas are released to the
public domain.
The five winners
will be picked anonymously (and subjectively) by our panel of judges
Sunday afternoon, and all ideas will be forwarded to Colin
Angle, Rodney Brooks, Helen Greiner,
and the other smart folks at iRobot after the event, along with
the email addresses of the submitters. Are you an AC2005 registrant?
Bring your 100 word entries to the conference, where we'll post
them on a 3x5" index card. No more than five entries per AC2005
registrant, please. Can you make a clean sweep?
High School Scholarships
 This
year, up to 10 future-interested high school students are being
awarded scholarships to attend Accelerating Change 2005 courtesy
of the University of Advancing Technology,
one of the nation's leading educational institutions for IT-oriented
students. Education is an important part of ASF's nonprofit mission.
We are honored to partner with UAT to bring young, dynamic minds
to our annual event. There are still scholarships available, and
if you know any high school students who would enjoy and benefit
from attending the conference, please direct them to the scholarship
page.
 Co-locating
Groups
  We
are also pleased to announce that three future-oriented groups are
co-locating at AC2005. The American
Cancer Society’s Futuring & Innovation Center led
by Randy Moss, the FBI
Futures Working Group led by Carl Jensen, and
a group of Omidyar.net members
led by
Thomas Kriese.
ASF
Mission
The ASF is an educational 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in
Los Angeles, California, engaged in research, education, consulting,
and selective advocacy of communities and technologies of accelerating
change. Our mission:
1. Promoting a multidisciplinary and critical understanding of accelerating
technological change in service to professional competency and economic,
political, social and personal development.
2. Helping business and society examine the opportunities and risks
of accelerating rates of change through our conferences, publications,
discussion groups, websites, and community.
3. Improving the way individuals and organizations look at the future
by improving the fields of Futures Studies and Acceleration and
Development Studies. Read
more ...
Conference
Sponsors:
 Robotics
Trends' second annual RoboNexus
Conference & Exposition is being held on October 6-9, 2005
at the San Jose Convention Center in San Jose, CA. RoboNexus is
the largest robotics event in the Western Hemisphere, and will feature
a multifaceted educational forum and exposition designed to bring
together all of the key participants driving the emerging $4B mobile
robotics and intelligent systems. RoboNexus will feature the largest
robotics business and consumer exposition in the North America and
will highlight robotics products, technologies and competitions,
along with robots from the foremost companies and research labs
in the world.
The event website is http://www.robonexus.com.
To register for the event and save $100 off the regular conference
rates, go to http://www.robonexus.com/registration.htm
and use priority code RNCD100.
 October
22-27, 2005 - Advancing Beneficial Nanotech: Focusing on the Cutting
Edge
13th Foresight Conference, Sponsored by the Foresight Nanotech Institute
Advancing Beneficial
Nanotechnology focuses on the latest nanotechnology applications,
research initiatives, public policy issues, and the future vision
of nanotechnology. Speakers including Peter Diamandis, XPrize; Jerry
Mander, International Forum of Globalization; Randy Hayes, Rainforest
Action Network; Aubrey de Grey, University of Cambridge; Adam Werbach,
Conservationist; George Atkinson, US Department of State and many
more, will discuss important goals for nanotechnology including
developing clean energy solutions, providing clean water, improving
human health, space development and making powerful information
technology available worldwide.
Discount
to ATimes readers:
If you are attending 3.5 days of the conference and register by
September 1, 2005, the regular registration fee is $695. To register
with your $100 discount, follow this link. http://foresight.org/conference2005/registration.html.
Choose
the option of attendance. then type in your special rate code “Accelerating".
Type in the total amount due – this is your discounted rate
of $595. Proceed to register and your discount will be processed
automatically.
ASF is
playing a founding role in the first ever Second
Life Community Convention at the New York Law School, October
8-9. Jerry Paffendorf, ASF Community Director and
moderator of the Second
Life Future Salon, is a leading organizer of the event which
will bring together 160 Second Life residents, virtual world entrepreneurs,
designers, and scholars of cyberspace to explore and create the
future of the 3D World Wide Web, often dubbed the Metaverse. The
event is a co-located extension of the New York Law School's third
annual State of Play
conference on law, virtual worlds, and video games. It is possible
to attend both events back-to-back for several days of uniquely
high-level discussion and networking on the twin themes of emerging
online worlds and graphical Web interfaces.
Call
for Submissions
ASF
is always seeking interesting submissions for our Accelerating
Times (AT) web publication. AT is a "free
and priceless" monthly newsletter covering scientific, technological,
business, policy, and social dialogs in accelerating change. Anyone
may submit scan hits, mini-articles, pictures, artwork, quotes and
questions to mail(at)accelerating.org.
Accepted work will appear, fully credited, in future issues. Also
please submit your feedback on Accelerating Times articles
to the Future Salon
Weblog, beneath each article as posted. Thanks! |
