Eri Gentry is an economist-turned-biotech entrepreneur and an advocate for science literacy. She has both performed kitchen chemistry with 7-year-olds and spoken at European Union and U.S. Department of Defense events on the importance of independent pursuits in science. In 2013, she was selected as a White House Champion for Change in Citizen Science. Eri is a science and technology research manager at the Institute for the Future, an independent research organization, and a co-founder of BioCurious, the first hackerspace for biotech. She was previously VP of open innovation at Scanadu, a company putting medical tools into the hands of the consumer. She has also served as community manager at Genomera, a startup pioneering crowdsourced clinical trials, and as CEO and co-founder of Livly, a garage biotech company on a mission to cure cancer. Eri is most interested in the future of the human body and diseases, maker culture, the use of public spaces, and behavioral economics. She spends her free time bringing amazing people together in various places, playing with her rescue puppy, Ender, and trying to craft tasty, low-carb delights. She dreams of traveling the world via teleportation.
Aldous Huxley
As Fitbits for Feelings Emerge, Whither Empathy?
Are we losing touch with one another? Are we sinking towards something like Roman civilization, when bloodthirsty spectators eagerly watched men fight to the death in the name of entertainment, now just on high-def screens? Or could empathy in society actually be enhanced by the capabilities of technology? Could machines sense our emotions better than our friends and family can and broadcast that data to them? It's not a crazy idea. In fact, wearable technologies are starting to emerge that are specifically designed to give viewers a sense of what’s going on inside another person. They may be crude now, but they will get better.
Bio + Life Sciences
Participatory Biology
Just as the Internet leveled the playing field for entrepreneurship, politics, and social engagement, recent advances are leveling it for biological progress. Processing power, the cloud, and Internet connectivity open doors for inquisitive individuals and nascent biotech startups. How are ordinary people involving themselves in biology, and what will be their impact? In this video, David Kirkpatrick moderates a discussion with Eri Gentry of BioCurious and the Institute for the Future, Ryan Bethencourt of Berkeley BioLabs and the XPRIZE Foundation, and David Haussler of UC Santa Cruz and HHMI.
Life 2.0: Stewart Brand et al
Bio-engineering is on the cusp of creating inventions that will radically change our perceptions. What will life be like when we can create it ourselves? Stewart Brand of the New Long Foundation, Eri Gentry of the Institute for the Future, and Andrew Hessel of Autodesk discuss. Watch video and read the complete transcript here.
Conferences
Bio 15
Techonomy Bio is a big-picture exploration of the transformative global social and economic benefits driven by the rapid advances being made in the biological and life sciences.
Conferences
Techonomy 14
This year Techonomy moves to the beautiful Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay, November 9-11, on the cliffs south of San Francisco, near Silicon Valley.
Conferences
Bio 14
The theme for Techonomy 2019 in Half Moon Bay, California was “Reset and Restore: Governing Tech, Retrieving Ethics, and Acting on Climate.” We are in a unique period when corporate responsibility and big-picture thinking is absolutely essential.
Conferences
Techonomy 13
A new society is coming into being. People around the world are building it using the rapidly-evolving tools of technology.
