KV Fitzpatrick

The Wired article Organized Chaos Reigns at BIL, the Alterna-TED said

The annual TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference in Monterey, California, is a terrific, mind-expanding experience for all who attend. Or so I’ve heard: The $6,000 price tag has, so far, kept it well out of my reach. That’s why I checked out the BIL Conference, also in Monterey, a free, two-day, open-ended un-conference whose organizers cast it as a kind of complement to TED.
 
At BIL, as at other un-conferences, the agenda was set by whoever shows up. If you wanted to present on any topic, you just added your name to the wiki and to the whiteboard, then got on stage at the scheduled time. With that kind of event, everything depends on who shows up, and it seemed clear that the BIL crowd was an interesting, talented, passionate group of people with a keen interest in applying scientific and technological ideas to areas as diverse as transportation, security, art, body modification, life extension, and computer programming.
 
Unfortunately I didn’t get to attend many other sessions, due to my family schedule. (Other than the kids’ experimentation session I organized, BIL was not especially kid-friendly.) The ones I did hear were terrific, including a great presentation on educating gifted children by KV Fitzpatrick, a presentation on how to be a successful heretic by anti-ageing researcher Aubrey de Grey, and an interesting discussion of business lessons you can learn from social insects by Mark Fitzsimmons.

KV Fitzpatrick is an alumna of the Early Entrance Program at Cal State LA, the Individualized Honors Program at Walter Reed Jr. High School, and The Mutaytor Performance Group. She is currently a graduate student of Neuroengineering at the University of Southern California, and a firm believer in the principle of making one’s own luck.
 
KV authored Are you a Replicant? Or are you a Repli-CAN?, Countdown to BIL, and a busy week, and When I Grow Up.
 
Read BIL Conference: from the eyes of a Chinese Traveler and From TED to BIL. Read her blog Infinite Interface.