Chapter 2. Defining Open: BioHack the Planet
How do we define an open community and what would we want from one? The inaugural BioHack the Planet conference took place this September in Oakland, California. Hosted in Omni Commons, the volunteer collective home to the DIYbio hub Counter Culture Labs, the conference embodied the spirit of the community it sought to bring together. BioHack the Planet (BioHTP) was developed to be “run by BioHackers, designed for BioHackers, with talks solicited from BioHackers.” Its two organizers, Karen Ingram and Josiah Zayner, are both veterans of the do-it-yourself (DIY) biology, or biohacking community, in their own right. Ingram is a coauthor of the BioBuilder curriculum for teaching synthetic biology. Zayner’s DIY supply store, ODIN, has outfitted many budding scientists with everything from pipette tips and bulk cell media to at-home CRISPR kits. So what happens when biohackers organize themselves to discuss their work? Part symposium, part workshop, and part exhibition, BioHTP explored the projects the biohacking community is tackling, how the community is organized, and where it’s going.
While BioHTP isn’t the first time the biohacking community has been brought together, it may be the first time it’s done so by its own at this scale. Soon after the launch of DIYbio.org in 2008, the FBI co-sponsored the “Building Bridges Around Building Genomes” conference in collaboration with the American Association For The Advancement ...
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