Holy cow, TransVision 04 has finally arrived. After nearly a year of preparations, it feels quite surreal to actually be engaging in the conference itself!
Today was the pre-conference seminar, the Faith Transhumanism and Hope Symposium. We had a very good turn out and the presentations were all excellent. I took notes like I was in university again.
It was good to see old friends again: James Hughes (including his family), Nick Bostrom, Jose Cordeiro, Ben Hyink, Stelarc (who was hurting bad from jetlag), and others. And I finally got to meet BJ Klein and Mike LaTorra in person.
There were lots of yawns today -- not because of the content, but due to a lot of tired and jet lagged people who just made the trek to Toronto. I can sympathize, as I remember how I felt last year when I arrived at Yale after driving all night.
Special thanks to Asher Maan and Ben Moogk for helping out today. My freakin' phone didn't stop buzzing, and I was in and out of the room like a yo-yo. One thing I will say, and without getting into too many of the details, I will never deal with the Lavin Agency ever again (the people who represent Steve Mann).
Speaking of Mann, he did a CBC radio interview to plug the conference today. If anyone heard it, drop me an email and let me know how it went.
Oh, BIG news: Yesterday I was contacted by the CBC's Marc de Guerre. He's going to do a documentary about the conference. And he wants to focus on me as the contextual "anchor" for the piece, which means I'll have a camera crew following me throughout the duration of the conference. That should be quite the experience. They'll follow up with a formal interview in a couple of weeks. For me personally, this is a huge victory unto itself after a year's worth of work.
I'm physically exhausted and the conference hasn't even really started yet. I've been basically going non-stop with preparations since last Friday -- one week solid. But I'm in good spirits, enthusiastic, and living off of the excitement of the event.
I may not be able to blog until the conference is over, but I'll have a lot to say next week.
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