Curious about Biology? Help launch Biocurious, the new biology collaborative lab space where citizen science moves out of the classroom and into the community. Following the successful example of hackerspaces such as Noisebridge, Langdon Labs, Hacker Dojo, and co-working spaces such as the Hub, we're pleased to offer the first Bay Area space dedicated to Non Institutional Biology. How is this possible? Governments and big business once dominated computing. Today, entrepreneurs and hobbyists play leading roles in developing computing technologies and products, both hardware and software. The tools for serious biological engineering are getting cheaper all the time, but aspiring entrepreneurs lack affordable access to a complete set of lab equipment outside of a university lab or high priced industrial commercial space. Motto: Safety, Education, Innovation. Featuring: 1) Education, Outreach, Community building events. Science was once a cultural activity, carried out by wealthy “gentlemen scholars” who had the leisure and material resources to experiment. The 20th century saw an unprecedented centralization of science around an industrial model. The plummeting costs of enabling technologies has brought meaningful biological research back within reach of the independent citizen scientist. From Bio-Art to BioFuels, the wave of next generation biotech applications is set to transform our culture and economy. BioCurious will be Ground 0 for this revolution. 2) Entrepreneurship Mentoring. The Bay Area is home to many networks that help entrepreneurs launch web businesses with a shoe-string budget and a dream. Similar support infrastructure does not yet exist for biotech ventures. Until recently, biotech has required large start up costs. An ecosystem of mentorship and a network of investors who understand the possibilities for lean-biotech-start ups to leverage shared resources and amplify their creative efforts to have disproportionate commercial impact, does not yet exist. BioCurious will catalyze the formation of this system.
Joseph is a philosopher, social entrepreneur, activist and organizer in the Open Science Movement. He has been studying the political and economic phenomenon of peer to peer, P2P, since encountering Napster in 2001. He advocates for a transition to a decentralized political economy in which abundantly distributed technologies, fully hackable to suit local needs, form the basis for sustainable prosperity.
