Christine Peterson, Penguicon Guest of Honor
Because Penguicon combines a science fiction convention with a festival of open source software, we don't just read about the future in science fiction, we also attract the people who are creating the future. I'm thrilled to announce that Christine Peterson has accepted our invitation to be a 2007 Guest of Honor! She is experienced at giving interesting and understandable lectures to every type of audience of every proficiency level, she is not opposed to associating with the words "science fiction", and she's brilliant when it comes to thinking about the future.
"Yogi Berra said, “It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future,” and how right he was. But there is one more point to keep in mind. If you're trying to project the long-term future, and what you get sounds like science fiction, you might be wrong. But if it doesn't sound like science fiction, it's definitely wrong." -Christine Peterson
Christine Peterson is Founder and Vice President of Public Policy for the Foresight Nanotech Institute, a not-for-profit think tank focusing on emerging technologies such as molecular nanotechnology. She is credited with having suggested adoption of the term "Open Source Software". She co-authored "Unbounding the Future: the Nanotechnology Revolution" (full text online) with K. Eric Drexler, the Father of Nanotechnology. With Gayle Pergamit, she also co-wrote "Leaping the Abyss: Putting Group Genius to Work" (full text online), which is extremely pertinent to open-source software development processes. She chairs conferences about nanotech. She has a chemistry degree from MIT.
Of all the years for me to be Head of Programming for Penguicon, I feel incredibly lucky that it was the year we get Christine Peterson. I've been reading her blog Nanodot for years, ever since I read "Unbounding the Future". I highly recommend UtF to everyone; it's a fun read. I'm excited about the possibility of designing a schedule track with themes of molecular manufacturing and other radical near-term advances in the human condition. Most of it will be pretty serious, but I'll also get a copy of this docu-comedy about nano-scale science and see if it would be suitable to show it at Penguicon. If we have a workshop for making molecule models out of twisted balloons, that would kick butt. I'm visualizing an advertising image: a collosal-sized Tux viewed from the perspective of a molecule, in which the close-up portion is shown to be made of atoms the size of marbles...