Inaugural SciBarCamp in Toronto Mar 15-16

[Reed Esau]

[from my post on the JREF forums]

An interesting development in the world of barcamps. The scientists
have arrived.

First some history. Back in 2003, Tech publisher Tim O'Reilly launched
FooCamp, an annual invite-only hacker/thinker unconference where every
one of the attendees gives talk on their own specialty. There are no
passive attendees. In 2006 FooCamp gave birth to a science-focused
event, again invite-only, called Science Foo Camp. The most recent of
which featured some recognizable faces.

The exclusivity of an invite-only event never set well with geeks who
created their own wildly-successful offshoot called barcamp which has
become an international network of user generated unconferences that
are open to all.

And now scientists in the Toronto area are seeing the benefit of the
open barcamp approach and hosting the first SciBarCamp on the weekend
of March 15-16 with a reception on the evening of the 14th. Even
FooCamp godfather Tim is enthusiastic at this new development.

I wonder if skeptics might take interest in the idea? What might such
an open skeptic-oriented unconference be called?

[Reed Esau]

Here's a link to the event: http://scibarcamp.org/

Note that they have four(4) sponsors, including Microsoft.

Their goal is broader than ours: "The goal is to create connections
between science, entrepreneurs and local businesses, and arts and
culture."

We can do that, but later. For now let's just get this thing rolling
with the goal of building a culture of participation among skeptics.