About the Talk
Crowdsourcing saved lives after the Haiti earthquake. Part of the reason I’ve been so behind in planning BIL is I’ve been in Miami collaborating with members of the open-source / open culture community (Sahana, Ushahidi, OpenStreetMaps) and the US Government (USSOUTHCOM, US Coast Guard) to respond to the crisis in Haiti. I’ll give an inside look on how these two cultures worked together in ways that have never been seen before.

About the Speaker
Hello my name is Todd Huffman, and these are the things that I do… toddhuffman.pbwiki.com

About the Talk
The North Paw is a compass anklet: it vibrates on your ankle to tell you which way is north. Because the stimulus is persistent, your brain adapts to the device, and you acquire an intuitive sense of north.

Sensebridge is a company I have started (with some friends) that aims to explore the space of wearable electronic senses. We bridge the world you can’t feel into the senses you already have: sensebridge. The North Paw bridges a magnetic sense, we also have projects to bridge ultrasonic sound (and thereby echolocation), heart beat, and “eyes in the back of your back”: feeling when things are coming up behind you.

Our approach is not visual: although vision is the most powerful of our senses, it’s also the most over-burdened already, and is actively used. We feel that the sense of touch offers the most possibilities for augmentation of new sensory stimulus.

If you’re interested in wearable electronics or sensory augmentation (aka augmented reality), come to my talk. I’ll give a short talk on wearable electronic senses, and then I’ll moderate a group discussion / Q & A session. I’ll also have a variety of devices on hand that you can try on! Check out our website

About the Speaker
Eric is an engineer and hacker, transhumanist and environmentalist. Lately he’s been building wearable electronic devices which augment his senses. Please join the noisebridge cyborg group: 1pm Sundays at Noisebridge (a San Francisco hackerspace), till the hacking stops.

About the Talk
A buoyancy based device, dubbed the LavaAmp, is able to perform PCR faster than regular thermocyclers, for extremely low cost, and is easily of manufactured and operated. The LavaAmp will also be portable and battery or USB powered, programmable, and able to communicate with smartphones and computers. The LavaAmp hardware will be as open as possible, completely customizable and hackable, so it can be adapted to new purposes and suit the needs of its users. Currently, the detection of the amplified DNA has to be done by conventional agarose gels, however, a variety of methods could be used for in situ detection for the next versions of the LavaAmp. The coupling of DNA detection in a handheld device means quick, effective and even automatic detection of plant and cattle pathogens, food-borne bacteria and diagnostic of antibiotic resistant infections with no need of cumbersome culture tests, not always available. Such a device would allow better surveillance of emerging pandemics in risky areas.

This would improve our collective reaction time against pandemics and extend the reach of the PCR for solving needs currently unmet because of cost and portability. Portable Personal PCR can be attractive for diagnosing neglected diseases in a clinical setting or used by hobbyists and schools: Is this sandfly infected with leishmaniasis? Do you want to teach your kids the real science behind CSI? Do you want to perform your own paternity tests? The LavaAmp can solve these problems and answer these questions, it is an extraordinary tool harnessing the power of PCR and taking it outside the lab, allowing anyone to become a citizen scientist.

About the Speaker
I am a computational biologist from Venezuela, interested in developing inexpensive methods for detecting neglected diseases.