#I was told to create an eventbrite for the event and I did

[crowley1990]

Anyone here an event organiser know anything about selling tickets offline in an efficient way…

[shirlleycoyle]

Tech Companies Want AI to Fix the Disastrous Vaccine Rollout

Across the US, the government’s early attempts to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine have been, at best, underwhelming.

In Ohio, nearly 900 doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine went to waste because a provider stored them at the wrong temperature. In New York City, clinics were forced to hold onto vaccine doses for weeks instead of administering them to high-risk patients, or even throw them out, because they couldn’t find anyone who met the state’s stringent criteria for the first phase of inoculation. Florida, meanwhile, partnered with the event ticket platform Eventbrite to manage vaccine appointments, resulting in a confusing, biased, and scam-prone distribution system.

Distributing the limited number of COVID-19 vaccines to the people who most need them is a daunting logistical challenge, and in many cases, the bureaucratic, human-run systems charged with overseeing it have fallen short. In some states, broken and confusing scheduling systems have driven frustrated residents to write code and build their own volunteer websites for booking vaccine appointments.

It’s the kind of problem, some tech firms say, that is ripe for artificially intelligent overseers—and it may be the very thing needed to jump-start a lucrative new era of automated health care decision-making and delivery.

“I think it did, in many ways, take the COVID-19 pandemic to put that rocket fuel behind AI” in health care, Dr. John Showalter, the chief product officer for Jvion, a clinical AI company that’s been operating since 2011, told Motherboard. “I feel like we’re right on that precipice. 2021 is going to have a lot of reports out about how clinical AI helped with COVID-19. By 2025, people are going to be like ‘clinical AI, yawn’” because it’s so ubiquitous.

There is a spectrum of use cases for AI in vaccine distribution. Health systems are already  using AI chatbots from companies like Hyro and Praktice AI to field calls from the large number of patients inquiring about whether they’re eligible for the vaccines, and to schedule appointments and follow ups.

Big tech companies like Google and Microsoft have developed vaccine management systems that incorporate AI at various levels, including planning trucking routes and maintaining dose temperatures.But the potential applications that are generating the most excitement, and skepticism, are AI tools designed to automate or influence decisions about where vaccines should go in the country—and who should get them.

In the early months of the pandemic, California asked companies to propose technological solutions to problems like COVID-19 test shortages. Aible, an AI startup based in the state, offered—for free—to create algorithmic models that would identify who to prioritize in testing in order to save lives and reduce the pandemic’s economic impact. State officials didn’t respond to the offer, Aible CEO Arijit Sengupta, told Motherboard, but he said the company is now talking with one of the major vaccine makers about creating a similar system to guide vaccine supply chains and prioritization.

A mock up provided by Aible of how its vaccine prioritization models might look to users.

“Matching up the demand and supply is something that’s not happening right now,” he said. “It would be better than what we are doing today—it would not be perfect, nothing is ever perfect—but what is good about a system like this is it learns on a daily basis and it adjusts.”

Most states are currently in the first phases of vaccination, where almost all available doses are reserved for health care workers, people over 65, and some individuals with chronic conditions. But once those populations are inoculated, states will have to make difficult decisions about where to send doses and who to prioritize next.

Jvion has created models that map which areas of the country and which population groups are most likely to experience severe effects or die if exposed to a wave of COVID-19 and, separately, which areas are the highest priorities for vaccine distribution based on the CDC’s prioritization recommendations and other health and socio-economic factors. The company has sent analyses of millions of patients to its customers, which include health systems, to guide their vaccine outreach.

Take Perry County, Pennsylvania. One of Jvion’s models, which incorporates the CDC’s guidelines, labels the county a very low priority for vaccination. But its other model, measuring community vulnerability to COVID-19, considers Perry County at the highest level of risk for severe, community-wide morbidity.

Jvion's COVID-19 model for Perry County, PA demonstrates how AI might help states allocate vaccines to high-risk areas they might otherwise overlook.

The reasons for the disparity aren’t necessarily intuitive. They draw on data that health systems likely aren’t considering and algorithmic pattern matching that is, by definition, unhuman. Why is Perry County at such high risk for COVID-19 morbidity? According to Jvion’s models, the fact that a county has “low commercial retail availability” and “low commercial/industrial job density” are influential risk indicators. Factors that influence the calculated risk level in other counties include the rate at which residents commute more than 60 minutes to work and the prevalence of environmental health hazards.

Jvion’s models are trained on a database of 36 million “independent lives,” Dr. Showalter said. That includes people’s medical claim records, socio-economic information about where they live from agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Agriculture, and credit scoring data from companies like Experian and Transunion. As they built the models, there was nowhere near enough information available about actual COVID-19 cases, so Jvion instead trained its models primarily on data about the health care trajectories of people with respiratory conditions and illnesses like Influenza.

Jvion’s models are not currently being used as automatic decision making systems—determining who gets prioritized for vaccines without human oversight. But AI is increasingly being used to inform a variety of triaging problems in health care, and experts say a regulatory action plan for medical AI that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published in January is a long-awaited signal that the agency is preparing to open the doors to a new array of medical AI tools.

Currently, in order for AI systems to be eligible for FDA approval as medical devices, they must be static tools—the algorithmic model that comes out of the box doesn’t change. But one of the strengths of this kind of technology is that models can constantly be trained on new data, tweaked, and improved over time. The agency’s new action plan calls for it to develop guidelines for allowing, and regulating, evolving systems.

Monitoring continuously changing algorithms that contribute to life-or-death decision making is a tricky proposition, though, and one that has kept the FDA from moving more quickly to accept these kinds of systems as medical devices.

But the COVID-19 pandemic has sped up health care providers’ adoption of AI tools—such as home monitoring systems for vital signs that reduce the chances of virus transmission. These tools may not need FDA approval as medical devices, but nonetheless influence health care decision making, Sara Gerke, a research fellow at Harvard Law School’s Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics, told Motherboard. That increased exposure will likely quicken the industry’s adoption of more advanced, higher-stakes tools, despite the many legal and ethical issues that remain.

“I personally believe that AI has potential for being used for allocation of vaccines, but that’s for the future,” Gerke said. “I would not trust the AI right now because there will be so many hidden biases in the data. First of all, what kind of data do you even use? Even if you take it from the electronic health records data then you already have a bias because in Black communities, many can’t even go to the doctor. Right now using it, I find it very difficult.”

Tech Companies Want AI to Fix the Disastrous Vaccine Rollout syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[ceciliataormina-internship]

2.07 (+6h) Research week

The past week I have been unfortunately in a dark place myself. Last month I got a job offer from a new coffee shop, offering me the position of Head Barista. The shop it was under construction, and  it was meant to open up to the public on the 28th of June. This it would have been a good news if it wasn’t for the fact that 2 days before the opening they sent a message over saying that the opening day it has been moved to middle August. I was destroyed, mostly due to the fact that when they sent the email I was working my last day at the old coffee shop where I already gave the notice a month in advance to be able to join the new company on time.  Because of this situation, now I am without a job and the stress of looking for another one ASAP is draining my energies. I haven’t got time to think about Marcus requests, I have been too overwhelmed, which is something I communicated him today during the visit. He was very sorry for me, but also comprehensive and understood the problem. Therefore we made the best out of our time during today’s session.

Marcus informed me that the 7th of July workshop is not gonna happen because there are not enough people attending. Therefore, he suggested to look for a venue available for the 27th/28th of July instead. As long as he won the founding, he will be able from now on to offer a few sponsored places to people he reckon are in need of help. Also he will be able do invest on a new place to practice the workshop. The bad news about the founding is that the money will arrive around the third week of July, so for now we will still need to look for a place staying on the budget of £150 max per day.

Marcus had some stuff to finish upstairs, so he gave me full power to search for places and call them directly, asking about the fees and the time range/availability over the weekend for the 27th of July.

I started my research as soon as I sat and there were few places I found.

The Rag factory:

A gallery with performance studios situated in brick lane, apparently with big rooms at big prices. I called and their time availability

Deli Broadgate London Studios: A building where lots of rehearsal studios are available to hire for a day or more. The main center is situated in Whitechapel and opened on weekends. I called them both asking for availability, price and size of the room.  The Rag Factory unfortunately did not have any space available for that weekend.  The Deli Boardgate instead gave me a big surprise. They had 2 rooms available - The Boardroom, Studio 2 and Studio 4. Studio 2 it was available between 10-11 and 12-16 at £70. (6,2m x 7,2m) Studio 4 it was available between !0-16 at £72 all day.  (4,7m x 7,4m) The Boardroom it was available between 10-16 at £108 (6,1m x 9,1m) I reported the prices to Marcus and we agreed that it was better to take the boardroom because of the size and the good price deal. I called back at the Deli and I booked the room for Marcus, explaining the lady what we will be doing and what will be our needs (8 chairs, a desk and a computer/screen). I also asked what is the payment method and the cancellation policy. She said that she would have sent an email with all the information straight to Marcus. And it actually happened!  I felt so exited to do something so different and engaging, even if it was just a phone call for a booking. Now I feel a real assistant!

After have sorted this out, Marcus told me that he booked the Cardboard citizen space for the 24th of August, which it makes everything more exiting because we can start to share information with the clients already! The rest of the day it has been spent publicizing the event on different social media and update the info of the Eventbrite account. 

Another thing I did, under Marcus’ request I created an Excel sheet where to insert all the data of every institution we contact or we are willing to contact. He sent me over the list and I had to write down all the contact numbers/email addresses of EVERY institution, plus looking for the name of the person in charge of the business correspondence.

It was a very busy day, I still feel my head exploding after all this work! It was very satisfying see on paper all the work I have been able to do. I look forward the next time!

[tehk-n-tea]

Hackstart 2017 @ UCL

Yesterday my mentor and I attended an event aimed at anyone thinking about/ interested in Computer Science, hosted by the TechSoc at UCL. I found out about this event and similar ones via Eventbrite, which is great for searching subject specific events ranging from Sci&Tech to Health and Fitness. I’ve found loooadsss of great meet-ups through this ^_^

 I set out to leave my house on time, which I did...but i somehow always manage to get lost -__- After trekking back and forth down the long roads of the uni buildings in the early spring heat, I finally made it- sweating, panting and more than slightly out of breath. After being joined by my mentor, the day began! ^_^

- a timetable layout of the day. I was in group C (beginners)

Session one: Music on Raspberry Pi

After being separated into our groups we were all lead out into a computer room, where we began our first session: ‘Music on Raspberry Pi’. We used an open-source programming environment ‘Sonic Pi’ to create, as the title suggests, music. The program was really informative, with tutorials written very well for a beginner.

 I picked it up quite quickly and played around with some beats; my mentor also had a few tries and together we managed to make a pretty cool looping four beat track ^__^ Anyone looking for an up-and-coming DJ hit me up (▀̿Ĺ̯▀̿ ̿) I’m definitely downloading the program and trying out new projects at home!

Session two: How the Internet works

‘How the Internet works’ was the next session,  a one hour presentation by a student who delved into the magic behind websites and computers, and how code is written to build these. It was a really informative session and I visibly remember my jaw dropping at one instance where he showed us the many layers of a simple web page. Mind=Blown. We were given the chance to ask him some questions towards the end, and I learned about why he chose computer science at uni, advice on UCAS applications and side projects, as well as many resources to visit to enhance our coding knowledge, in particular djangogirls and freecodecamp.

- close up of a network of servers... 100s of 1000s!

Session three: The next tech revolution? An intro to Quantum computing

This talk opened up the ideas of conventional computers versus quantum computers, where the latter uses quantum mechanics produce a much more efficient computer that is able to do many calculations at once- much more than the conventional. Since this was only a short session we couldn’t really go into depth, but she did a great job in laying out the basic ideas. In the q&a session I learned that this type of computing is still undergoing much research, and that Toshiba had some already produced and being tested. One thing we all found quite intriguing was trying to visualise what a quantum computer might look like. Our host told us she had even tried googling ‘Quantum Computer’ but alas nothing could be found. Who knows? Maybe in 20 years we’ll find out ◔ ⌣ ◔

- a company that faced much controversy after claiming to have Quantum Computers at a press conference, yet failing to produce them 

Session four: How is it being a computer science student?

The final talk I attended was hosted by another student in his second year of computer science. This talk was mostly aimed at encouraging all of us that attended to pursue computer science at university. We were given advice that I found extremely valuable; right from UCAS applications and making our personal statements stand out, to finding jobs and internships during uni, to post-uni career advice. Here are some notes I made during the talk that stood out to me the most:

computer science has a huge support network- online communities, open courses, events, panels, blogs (─‿‿─)  etc

80% of tech jobs are unposted- meaning connections and doing your own research is key when looking for opportunities to join companies (linkedIn!)

hackathons are some of the best ways to develop your coding skills- they’re open to beginners, free, and so is the SWAG ^__^

computer science is used in everything, from finance to medicine

He also gave us some great tips that he’d give to his younger self, some of which include making the most of online resources, reaching out to people, building your CV and doing your own personal projects. This session was extremely informative and though his enthusiasm and passion I came out of the talk feeling honestly inspired and motivated! 

[joycestrong]

What's Confident Women Consortium and How Can It Help Me With Personal Development?

What is Confident Women Consortium?

I founded Confident Women Consortium to help people create confidence through connection and celebration.

And I wanted to become more confident in myself.

Here are a few things I needed to learn:

How to Ask For Help

I didn’t know how to ask for help. I thought asking for help meant I was weak or stupid. I love to help people and I often give of my time freely, but I was unable to see, because of the story I told myself, that people wanted to help me too. Why would someone want to help me? Well, because it feels good to help people and I’m as deserving of help than anyone else on the planet.

How to Connect With Others and Find My Tribe

I didn’t have a lot of friends. As a single parent with five children my connections were limited to my work connections and people I met through my children’s activities. I didn’t choose to spend time with these people. I spent time with these people by default. I’ve heard that we are the composite of the five people we spend the most time with and I realized one day that I could create my new tribe by founding Confident Women Consortium. Now I have opportunity to meet people and the skills to curate a community where anyone can come and connect with positive people who resonate with their values and goals.

How to Make Time to Celebrate, Appreciate and Acknowledge

As a single parent and breast cancer survivor I’ve done many amazing things in my life for which I did not get a trophy or much acknowledgement at all. I was both mother and father to my children, sole provider, caretaker and advice giver. I learned to skate and play hockey at 50 years old! But all I could see was a tired mother, going day to day to try to pay bills and keep my kids safe and happy. And I failed, over and over and over. I was unable to see failure as positive thing on my road to success. And then one day I bought a poster of Michael Jordan and hung it up in my home.

“I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” ~ Michael Jordan

I used this same mindset about failure when I learned to become a better parent. I learned to play hockey. I learned to build websites. I learned to use social media. I learned to connect with people at a deeper level. I learned to MAKE time for myself to make myself stronger so that I could continue to be there for my family. I realized that my children do not listen to my words as much as they watch and learn from my lifestyle choices.

My purpose became creating a legacy of resiliency and growth for my children and loved ones.

I finally understood It’s not about falling down. It’s about falling down, being fascinated with what happened and how it happened and then getting up quickly to try it again, better the next time. Over and over and over, fail, fail, fail.

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

How Can Confident Women Consortium Help with My Personal Development?

It’s simple. We are here to help you get out of your own way. Confident Women Consortium is an opportunity to get together with people who want to feel more confident, who want to grow and improve their lives and who aspire to big dreams. We enjoy a meal together, listen to a motivational speaker, appreciate and acknowledge each other, and most of all celebrate the power of confidence and possibility.

I’m looking forward to meeting you, getting to know you, learning from you and sharing with you. Please let me know how I can be of service to you. And who do YOU know that could use more confidence? I appreciate your telling them about our tribe. <3

Learn about our Confident Women Events at www.TotalWellCoach.com/events.

Our next event is June 26, 2019 at 6:30pm, at The Groton Inn, 128 Main Street, Groton, MA 01450. Our speaker is Shawna Pelton who will teach us “3 Simple Steps for Profound Personal Transformation - How to Get UNSTUCK & Create an Extraordinary Life by Design”. You can purchase your tickets on Eventbrite.

You can purchase your tickets here: 3 Simple Steps for Profound Personal Development with Shawna Pelton

[michaelfallcon]

Oakland: Get Your Facts On At Coffee Trivia Night At Awaken Coffee

Did you know that coffee was first harvested sometime in the second century BCE? Did you also know that the first written instance of the word “barista” comes from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice? Or what about the fact that “spres,” the root of espresso literally translates in Italian to “spray?” If you were privy to all those factoids or knew from the jump that they were completely fabricated by my dumb brain (and best I can tell, most likely incorrect), then you may be just the sort of person that would kill it at Royal Coffee’s Coffee Trivia Night. Taking place at Oakland’s Awaken Coffee on Thursday, August 30th, it will be a night of coffee and coffee facts, and it’s all for a good cause.

Hosted by Royal Coffee’s Chris Kornman and Sandra Elisa-Loofbourow, Coffee Trivia Night will be a competition like no other. Sure, you can pour a 98-tier tulip in a thimble and maybe that would help you win a throwdown, but can you explain the fluid dynamics that make that pour possible? Because that’s what it’s going to take to win Coffee Trivia (well probably not that, because that’s really, really impossibly hard, but you see where I’m going here). Teams of up to five will battle it out over a variety of coffee-related facts, none of which can be spoken of before the event lest there be foul play afoot.

Winners will receive prizes donated by sponsors Grounds for Health, Equator Coffees & Teas, Ritual Coffee, the Created Co, the Crown, and more.

And the best part is, it’s all for charity. The entirety of the proceeds go to Ground for Health, an organization working to prevent cervical cancer in women in coffee growing regions.

Tickets for Coffee Trivia Night are $10 person and can be purchased here (and if you feel so inclined to donate a little extra, that will go to Grounds for Health as well). If you don’t have a team, fret not, for the event organizers can help join you up with other loosies, should you and they be so inclined to share in the plunder. For more information, visit Coffee Trivia Night’s Eventbrite page.

And remember all those rock solid facts I told you earlier. They will surely be indispensable in the final round when it’s all on the line.

Zac Cadwalader is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.

Top image via Royal Coffee

Disclosure: Royal Coffee and Equator Coffees & Teas are advertising partners on Sprudge Media Network.

The post Oakland: Get Your Facts On At Coffee Trivia Night At Awaken Coffee appeared first on Sprudge.

Oakland: Get Your Facts On At Coffee Trivia Night At Awaken Coffee published first on https://medium.com/@LinLinCoffee

[epchapman89]

Oakland: Get Your Facts On At Coffee Trivia Night At Awaken Coffee

Did you know that coffee was first harvested sometime in the second century BCE? Did you also know that the first written instance of the word “barista” comes from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice? Or what about the fact that “spres,” the root of espresso literally translates in Italian to “spray?” If you were privy to all those factoids or knew from the jump that they were completely fabricated by my dumb brain (and best I can tell, most likely incorrect), then you may be just the sort of person that would kill it at Royal Coffee’s Coffee Trivia Night. Taking place at Oakland’s Awaken Coffee on Thursday, August 30th, it will be a night of coffee and coffee facts, and it’s all for a good cause.

Hosted by Royal Coffee’s Chris Kornman and Sandra Elisa-Loofbourow, Coffee Trivia Night will be a competition like no other. Sure, you can pour a 98-tier tulip in a thimble and maybe that would help you win a throwdown, but can you explain the fluid dynamics that make that pour possible? Because that’s what it’s going to take to win Coffee Trivia (well probably not that, because that’s really, really impossibly hard, but you see where I’m going here). Teams of up to five will battle it out over a variety of coffee-related facts, none of which can be spoken of before the event lest there be foul play afoot.

Winners will receive prizes donated by sponsors Grounds for Health, Equator Coffees & Teas, Ritual Coffee, the Created Co, the Crown, and more.

And the best part is, it’s all for charity. The entirety of the proceeds go to Ground for Health, an organization working to prevent cervical cancer in women in coffee growing regions.

Tickets for Coffee Trivia Night are $10 person and can be purchased here (and if you feel so inclined to donate a little extra, that will go to Grounds for Health as well). If you don’t have a team, fret not, for the event organizers can help join you up with other loosies, should you and they be so inclined to share in the plunder. For more information, visit Coffee Trivia Night’s Eventbrite page.

And remember all those rock solid facts I told you earlier. They will surely be indispensable in the final round when it’s all on the line.

Zac Cadwalader is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.

Top image via Royal Coffee

Disclosure: Royal Coffee and Equator Coffees & Teas are advertising partners on Sprudge Media Network.

The post Oakland: Get Your Facts On At Coffee Trivia Night At Awaken Coffee appeared first on Sprudge.

seen 1st on http://sprudge.com

[mrwilliamcharley]

Oakland: Get Your Facts On At Coffee Trivia Night At Awaken Coffee

Did you know that coffee was first harvested sometime in the second century BCE? Did you also know that the first written instance of the word “barista” comes from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice? Or what about the fact that “spres,” the root of espresso literally translates in Italian to “spray?” If you were privy to all those factoids or knew from the jump that they were completely fabricated by my dumb brain (and best I can tell, most likely incorrect), then you may be just the sort of person that would kill it at Royal Coffee’s Coffee Trivia Night. Taking place at Oakland’s Awaken Coffee on Thursday, August 30th, it will be a night of coffee and coffee facts, and it’s all for a good cause.

Hosted by Royal Coffee’s Chris Kornman and Sandra Elisa-Loofbourow, Coffee Trivia Night will be a competition like no other. Sure, you can pour a 98-tier tulip in a thimble and maybe that would help you win a throwdown, but can you explain the fluid dynamics that make that pour possible? Because that’s what it’s going to take to win Coffee Trivia (well probably not that, because that’s really, really impossibly hard, but you see where I’m going here). Teams of up to five will battle it out over a variety of coffee-related facts, none of which can be spoken of before the event lest there be foul play afoot.

Winners will receive prizes donated by sponsors Grounds for Health, Equator Coffees & Teas, Ritual Coffee, the Created Co, the Crown, and more.

And the best part is, it’s all for charity. The entirety of the proceeds go to Ground for Health, an organization working to prevent cervical cancer in women in coffee growing regions.

Tickets for Coffee Trivia Night are $10 person and can be purchased here (and if you feel so inclined to donate a little extra, that will go to Grounds for Health as well). If you don’t have a team, fret not, for the event organizers can help join you up with other loosies, should you and they be so inclined to share in the plunder. For more information, visit Coffee Trivia Night’s Eventbrite page.

And remember all those rock solid facts I told you earlier. They will surely be indispensable in the final round when it’s all on the line.

Zac Cadwalader is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.

Top image via Royal Coffee

Disclosure: Royal Coffee and Equator Coffees & Teas are advertising partners on Sprudge Media Network.

The post Oakland: Get Your Facts On At Coffee Trivia Night At Awaken Coffee appeared first on Sprudge.

from Sprudge https://ift.tt/2KNgHu1

[trendingnewsb]

At This Crypto Event, the Attendees Really Were High

On Thursday afternoon, an employee of fintech company Cindicator stopped by a conference called Crypto Sanctum held at Beneville Studios in New York’s Flatiron neighborhood. Organized by a group called “The Decentralists” and a crypto project called IOVO, the Crypto Sanctum promised to “connect people with right opportunities in the fast moving crypto and blockchain space.” Tickets cost $500. At the event the Cindicator employee ate lunch, which included sushi and tea, and chatted with a few attendees before leaving for a nearby meeting with her boss.

An hour into that meeting, she could barely speak. She noticed the room was spinning and it was a struggle to stand up. “I realized I was totally wasted,” she said. At first she thought it was sleep deprivation—she hadn’t had a good night’s sleep—but that had never given her the spins like this. She told her boss she couldn’t work anymore because she felt stoned and didn’t know how, which she says was embarrassing to admit.

The Cindicator employee remembers walking home, but doesn’t remember the route she took. In subsequent days, several of the event’s 200 attendees discussed similar experiences on Telegram, the crypto world’s preferred messaging service. One attendee said he thought he’d gotten food poisoning. Another said she’d experienced panic attacks. A third reported he had heard the food was infused with marijuana but felt the dosage was “certainly heavy.”

The Crypto Sanctum’s menu, viewed by WIRED, subtly noted that some of the condiments served were “infused.” But some attendees said they did not see the menu or understand its message. A few menu items explicitly stated that they contain cannabis—cocktails, cannabis-marinated olives, and sugar for coffee and tea—but others simply say “infused” without explaining what the infusion is.

The menu invites attendees to “experience inspiring culinary arts highlighting the benefits of herbs.” According to the menu, MagicalButter.com, a company which sells appliances for making “botanical”-infused butters, provided catering, which included sushi with “infused wasabi and magical Ponzu sauce” and a taco station with “infused hot sauce.”

As the event unfolded, some attendees warned each other about the food and drinks. At one point, an attendee passed out on a couch. A 20-minute video of the event posted to Facebook shows people milling around a white studio with lighting displays on the walls while a DJ spins EDM beats in the background. In the video, an attendee says she had been “very high” earlier and the person filming responds “all day, all day.”

As cryptocurrency—once a fringe technology—forges into the mainstream, it has struggled to shake its association with nefarious activity. In its early days, Bitcoin became known as a way to launder money and buy drugs and sell online. More recently, the skyrocketing price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has created a generation of young, mostly male crypto-millionaires, and attracted fraudsters and Lambo-obsessed “bitcoin bros.” Many involved in the small, tight-knit crypto community resent that stereotype because it hurts the legitimacy of the overall movement and invites onerous regulatory scrutiny. Attendees of the Crypto Sanctum expressed frustration at the food situation for that reason.

The Crypto Sanctum’s promotional materials advertised “an environment in which intellect, art, music, business, philosophy, and caring for humanity can all co-exist.” The event promised to educate people on tokens, cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology “in a spirit of openness and oneness.”

The Crypto Sanctum organizers have removed the event’s website, Eventbrite page, and promotional YouTube video. The Decentralists has no discernable online presence. IOVO, a crypto project based in Poland which partnered with the conference, controlled the website sanctum.network, which is now offline.1(IOVO, according to its site, stands for “Internet of Value Omniledger.”)

As anger grew within Telegram groups over the weekend, people affiliated with the event, its sponsors, and with Magical Butter began to reach out directly to attendees, according to Telegram chats viewed by WIRED. An IOVO representative apologized to some individuals via Telegram and said IOVO was not involved with the catering. Magical Butter did not respond to a request for comment.

Several Telegram conversations and Facebook messages viewed by WIRED point to Francoise Sinclair as the event’s main organizer. According to an agenda posted online, Sinclair was scheduled to kick off the event with welcome remarks and close out the evening programming with a 9 pm “sound meditation.” A March article in WIRED UK describes Sinclair as one of two assistants to Brock Pierce, the former child actor who is director of the Bitcoin Foundation and leader of a movement to create a crypto utopia in Puerto Rico. It’s not clear if Pierce attended the event. Sinclair did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

In a statement, ​IOVO CEO Krzysztof Gagacki​ called the incident "deeply disturbing and unacceptable," and said IOVO was among the "victims of this unprecedented situation."

​"​The incident had a significant impact on the conference schedule, and some of our own team were so affected that they were unable to stay to the end. It is for this same reason that I wasn't able give a presentation​," Gagacki's statement continued​. ​"​Unfortunately, the incident hurts the legitimacy of the whole blockchain movement. I would like to make it clear: substance abuse is against the values that we uphold.

​"​Even though IOVO contributed to the overall program of the Crypto Sanctum conference and provided its website, we were not engaged in any executive services. IOVO as an event partner was not involved in food and drinks organization, and we had no knowledge about any nonstandard components used in the process of their preparation.​" Gagacki said IOVO "will do everything in our power to make the guilty party accountable.​"​

1 UPDATE, Mar. 7, 11:55AM: This article has been updated to include comment from IOVO.

Crypto Craze

Cryptocurrency scams prompted Facebook to ban advertisements for the sector in January.

The backers of tether claim to have a dollar in reserve for each unit of the cryptocurrency; many observers are skeptical.

Read the WIRED Guide to Bitcoin.

Related Video

Security

Hacking the Trezor Bitcoin Vault

Mark Frauenfelder saved 7.4 bitcoins on a Trezor electronic vault then he lost the passcode. Here he hacks the device to unlocks his funds.

Read more: https://www.wired.com/story/at-this-crypto-event-the-attendees-really-were-high/

from Viral News HQ https://ift.tt/2qFx8kb via Viral News HQ

[topicprinter]

Yesterday, I was interviewed for episode #33 of the Indie Hackers podcast. This was the first time I was ever interviewed about my work... a little stressed I was.Just seconds after we finished recording, Courtland went on and said:Really different interview ...At that point, I'm like... hmmm... yes of course it was different, for an hour I couldn't articulate one coherent tip or lesson learned over 15 years of hacking around ideas and projects... given that every other Indie Hackers podcast episode I've listen to finishes with that climactic moment where the interviewee throws an amazing lesson learned (🎶). Yes, mine was different... mine finished with a long silence where I'm liked "...hmmmm, I don't know... what did I learn? hmm... probably something right?"But Courtland went on and added:different... but in a good way.I reflected on that and what he probably meant was that the interview will be perceived as authentic, because I mostly talked about my journey. So I warn you, do not expect to learn crazy tips to create and grow your business.If I could redo the interview here is what I would probably end up with:Entrepreneurship is a really really long journey, you need to pace yourself if you want to do it for the long term. It's never too late to learn something new. It's never too late to start something new. You should find joy in the process. Don't risk everything. You should be resolute (stubborn in a positive way)... success will come... in ways you never expected.Here are the notes I sent Courtland before the interview to help him prepare, read this as a teaser to the episode which should be released in 2 weeks.I hope you enjoy my humble journey. :)I started playing with HTML at around 14 in '98. Funny story: I actually got into HTML when my mother started coding a website about our family genealogy and as a pretentious kid I laughed at her skills... Of course I said I could do better. She challenged me, and it worked. I got hooked.The first website I built was hosted at multimania.fr, the GeoCities of the French world. It was a collection of free games for PC. Because there was no such website in french it instantly started to pick up some traffic, up to hundreds of visitors a day. For a kid like me it was pretty exciting. I became obsessed by it, wanted to grow the website.I slowly built it from HTML to ASP/HTML then to PHP/HTML. And pickup my first domain name jeuxgratuits.net. (I don't own that website anymore, it was sold couple of years ago)That’s when I started putting some ads up, at the time they were paying $0.25 CPC per click. It was crazy. Of course, I did what every kids would have done, I just started clicking on the ads myself! Of course I was kicked out and never saw any penny. :)I slowly moved to other interests, games and sport, but the website was always growing. At one point I was the first result for ‘jeux’ in Google (‘games’ in French). And was receiving like 40 000 visitors a day.Google Adsense got released. Wow. That’s when I started to make some real money, around 100-200$/day (sometimes more). At this point I was studying business management at university and I wasn’t really considering myself as a programmer. Given the money I was making, I thought about scaling the website to other languages and verticals. I wanted to create the youtube of online games. Not really knowing how to code all of this I hired someone from my university studying computer engineering. The deal was he would code it for cheap, but at the same time develop his own-vanilla-django-rails-a-like-framework in PHP.At 40k visitors a day the new version was a total disaster. You can’t query the database thousands of times on every single page hit…. :) The code was not created with scale in mind, and scale the website had. As soon as the new version launched, everything crashed… and it crashed for weeks and months. Google penalized the ranking, and I lost 70% of my traffic. All of this was pretty enlightening, I realized that if I wanted to work in technology I should be able to speak the language. It should be my craft. You can’t delegate this to someone else.So I bought an O'Reilly book about MySQL… and got to work. That was around 2004/5…. That’s when I really got hooked to coding for real.Problem solving was so rewarding, it was in big contrast to school, which I found really boring.Another lesson I learned was that when something works, you don't necessarily need to change it. You might cause more harm. Of course this is all relative, it’s not always the case. But this still stick with me today, I'm always weary of changing a winning recipe. It's kind of my Digg.com like story... you really can kill a successful product yourself.I then finished university, jeuxgratuits.net was still good steady income. But I was not satisfied with my degree… I didn’t really want to work for a company like Procter & Gamble. I wanted to start my own thing, keep in mind that for me jeuxgratuits.net wasn’t a business. It was a project, and I wasn’t really that proud about it (for whatever stupid reason, right?). I wanted to work on something more noble. A big project. I wanted to start a game studio.Not really knowing how to code games… I was thinking that I needed to meet game developers. So I started to lurk indie game forums and blogs. I became fascinated by the creativity of that space. It’s there I found out about game jams. Game jams is a concept where couple of people will in a given amount of time create games on a common theme. That’s where it clicked, I could create a game jam in my hometown where I could meet potential partners for my game studio.I created the Bivouac Urbain game jam, which can be translated to “Urban campfire game jam”. The idea was that it would be held outside in big tops in downtown Quebec City. We decided to host it outside to WOW people not normally interested in things like a games and tech… that way it would promote Quebec tech culture in a cool way and we could get noticed by the city and Quebec province gov. So they would want to fund the event. It worked.We did the Bivouac for 4 years, and the last year our budget was around $CAD 250 000. We had the game jam, live music shows, art displays, game companies exposing their games to the public… it was pretty cool.Second edition’s trailerParticipant Juicy Beast studio presenting their game to the judges here (last edition).After 3 successful editions, the only problem was that my main goal was never achieved… I never really got to meet fellow game developers. I was just too damn busy organizing and managing the event.During those first 3 years I was more and more interested by creating experiments and coding, check some of them still online: (Open in Chrome… code might be broken in other browsers)FontBombA strange take on flowersThe enemy of my enemy is my friendBefore the fourth edition I thought… wait a minute… I could participate in the next edition instead of just organizing it… this would give me the motivation to go through all the pain of organizing it (raising money, finding partners, dealing with media, dealing with governments, etc.). I could finally experiment my own creation.I asked people working at my co-working space (I opened the first co-working space in Quebec city, we can talk about this too) to join me and create a team for the next edition. As they were web developers we decided to go with web technology for our game.You can see me being interviewed by famed indie developer Adam Atomic (judge at the event) after 30 hours of game development.Although really fun, this would be the last edition of the Bivouac, since I realized it was taking too much of my time.Managing is not something I enjoyed that much, what I liked and still like the most is the process of creating.This is not the end of the story though… when I wrapped up the last edition, I decided that I wanted to launch a web business. I really enjoy coding small experiments but I wasn’t seeing how it could pay the bills. Based on my experience managing and organizing the Bivouac… I though really hard about some of my pains… one was a simple universal problem faced by all event organizers…. printing the name badges. The process, the tools, everything sucked. But most importantly it sucks exactly at the time where you have no time for it… few hours before the start of your events.THERE… that was it. I would create the Vista Print of name badges. I did not do any market research, I was my market research. I just started coding.After 3 months I realized that I needed some help for the visuals, and the guys with whom I created my game at the Bivouac and worked at my co-working space were all brilliant front end engineers. I offered them to partner with me before launch. Which they did enthusiastically.Then…. the luck, just few weeks before we launch, we received an email from Mitch Colleran at Eventbrite asking us if we were developing a name badge tool, he saw our requests to the dev mode version of their API, our app was named “Name Badges”. He was really excited about it…. because name badges was one of their users’ biggest pain. He told us that at launch he would promote us through Eventbrite’s newsletter, Twitter account and blog.It took 2 weeks to get our first order, 4 weeks to reach 1k$ monthly revenue. At this point we applied to Y Combinator, got invited to the interview. And…. got totally destroyed. At the interview they cleverly brought the person responsible for printing name badges at YC events, and they asked us to convince her to use our product…. easy, right? Well she started by saying she uses mail merge to print the name badges. The problem is that we had absolutely no idea what mail merge was. From that moment the interview went downhill. We were not selected.After a few more months I asked my partners if they wanted to go full time with me? They all said yes! But we would not only work on Conference Badge. We would also try to experiment with other ideas and projects.Remember above when I said one lesson I learned with Jeuxgratuits.net was that you don’t need to change a winning recipe. That was our mantra with ConferenceBadge. We would give stellar customer support and fix the problems as they show up… but we wouldn’t try to expand in other verticals of the event business. It was just a damn great tool to create name badges.At some point Etienne (one of my partners) came with the idea of a tool to help us draft emails has a team like a Google doc. We were all excited by the idea.The more we built it, the more we used it, the more we realized first-hand the incredible impact a tool like Missive could have on our business. At that point, there was no coming back, Missive was our main mission.Fast forward 3 years…. we now have good growth for Conference Badge, and Missive's customer base is growing at 25% month over month.It took a really long time get to a point where Missive was competitive… but now after 3 years of labor… we are receiving amazing reviews and are really confident of the product future.Don't hesitate to follow me on twitter if you found the above interesting. Make sure to give Missive a try... it's the best email/chat client you can use to manage your business! And if you ever need name badges, you know where to get them! ✌️I will hang around if you have questions for me.

[rollinbrigittenv8]

Millennials Are Attending Events in Droves Because of Fear of Missing Out

Aubri Nowowiejski, founder and board member of the Student Event Planners Association, and an executive producer at Coterie Spark, says her fellow Millennials want to attend more live events, but it can be a challenge for planners to get them to pay attention to the event instead of their smartphones. Student Event Planners Association

Skift Take: Millennials value experiences over things, so getting them to your event is easy. But once they're there, will they look up from their phones long enough to engage?

— Deanna Ting

Americans are attending events and are feeling community-minded when they do, and Millennials are in the forefront.

A survey conducted in April by EventBrite, a global event technology platform, in partnership with Ipsos and Crowd DNA, found that 78 percent of American adults respondents age 18 and older attended a live event in the past 12 months.

Nearly three-quarters (71 percent) agreed that attending an event makes them feel more connected to other people, their community, and the world, a marked increase from 2014 (66 percent).

Among Millennials (ages 18-34), the numbers are even higher. In the past year, 89 percent said they attended at least one live event, up from 82 percent three years ago. As with the general adult population, a significant portion (79 percent) feel more connected to other people, their community and the world through attending events, up from just 69 percent in 2014.

Significantly for the events and conferences industry, 74 percent of Millennials surveyed said attending a live event expands their perspective more than reading about things online.

Here’s the kicker: Three-quarters of Millennials also prefer experiences to things, according to the survey.

“The biggest buzzword right now is FOMO [fear of missing out], and that’s a huge factor for Millennials,” said Aubri Nowowiejski, 28, an executive producer at Coterie Spark, a global meeting and corporate event-planning firm based in Houston, Texas.

“It’s all about projecting to your social media network, and painting a picture of a phenomenal lifestyle. They chase experiences over things to get those likes and comments and interactions, and that dopamine fix,” said Nowowiejski, who founded the Student Event Planners Association in 2009 while a student at Texas State University. It currently has more than 2,000 members nationwide.

In fact, the study found that nearly half of Millennials surveyed attend live events so they have something to share online; and 78 percent reported enjoying seeing other people’s experiences on social media.

The Millennial obsession with FOMO and cultivating the perfect social media feed can be a boon to consumer-focused marketing events, especially if they are free, but it also presents challenges to conference and meetings organizers who value engagement. In an effort to lure the young demographic, organizers may reach for the unique “wow” factor, and wind up with an event that is more style than substance.

“That’s one of my biggest frustrations: I want us to put down our phones,” said Nowowiejski. “We’re experiencing the whole world through a lens and we’re not present in the moment, and it is an issue. Conference planners are trying to integrate social media and meet Millennials where they are. You go to a conference and are told to live-tweet, but if I’m tweeting, am I really absorbing what the speaker is saying? It’s a double-edged sword. What did you really experience if you didn’t put your phone down?”

But event organizers can capitalize on FOMO in their strategy to get Millennial participants to more deeply engage. Events that require attendees to leave their phones before they enter a certain room create instant exclusivity simply because the experience can’t be shared on social media.

“Even though they’re not able to snap a picture for posting, they feel like they got an exclusive invite. Having no photography is something planners can play off of to get the phones out their hands,” Nowowiejski said.

Another challenge Nowowiejski cited is Millennials’ inexperience with and reluctance to engage in the real world. Though interacting on social media can be a pathway to human interaction, the Digital Generation’s actual networking skills are often highly undeveloped.

“We are super networkers because we grew up in a digital age, so we are used to online networking, but when you put us in an actual face to face environment, it’s very different,” Nowowiejski said. “Conferences or events in general are crucial for Millennials because they are realizing they are super-connected but disconnected at the same time.

“To develop these quality relationships, and advance their careers, Millennials know they need to be at these events where they have unparalleled experiences and opportunities to get educated and network. Event organizers almost need to push them and guide them through the process,” Nowowiejski said.

One way to convince Millennials to engage and network, “beyond just giving them alcohol,” is through activities, particularly gamification, she said. Collecting coins or checking in at certain stations during a conference can deliver the same satisfaction and even the all-important dopamine fix. Engaging through digitized games makes networking — often seen as a daunting task — fun and less intimidating. Likewise, planners who include incentives for attendees to bring a friend are likely to get a higher turnout among Millennials.

“They know they need to network, but it’s like standing in front of a 500-person audience; it’s so scary and frightening for them to go by themselves. They need a friend or someone they know at an event. Very few will take the initiative to go on their own,” Nowowiejski said.

Sticker shock is another hurdle. Much of the networks and information accessed online comes at low or no cost, and younger Millennials may not view investing in themselves as a priority.

“Millennials are cheap and they are used to getting everything for free, so that’s another challenge for the event industry. It can be the most amazing event out there, but if there is a high price, it can be a barrier. They’re thinking, ��I can join a Facebook group for free; why would I pay $1000 to meet the same people in person?'”

Nowowiejski noted that recent college graduates are more likely to have the penny-pinching mindset, and simply may not have the funds, while folks five years into their career are more likely to make the investment. More than likely, though, it’s employers who will be footing the bill.

[touristguidebuzz]

Millennials are Attending Events in Droves Because of Fear of Missing Out

Aubri Nowowiejski, founder and board member of the Student Event Planners Association, and an executive producer at Coterie Spark, says her fellow Millennials want to attend more live events, but it can be a challenge for planners to get them to pay attention to the event instead of their smartphones. Student Event Planners Association

Skift Take: Millennials value experiences over things, so getting them to your event is easy. But once they're there, will they look up from their phones long enough to engage?

— Deanna Ting

Americans are attending events and are feeling community-minded when they do, and Millennials are in the forefront.

A survey conducted in April by EventBrite, a global event technology platform, in partnership with Ipsos and Crowd DNA, found that 78 percent of American adults respondents age 18 and older attended a live event in the past 12 months.

Nearly three-quarters (71 percent) agreed that attending an event makes them feel more connected to other people, their community, and the world, a marked increase from 2014 (66 percent).

Among Millennials (ages 18-34), the numbers are even higher. In the past year, 89 percent said they attended at least one live event, up from 82 percent three years ago. As with the general adult population, a significant portion (79 percent) feel more connected to other people, their community and the world through attending events, up from just 69 percent in 2014.

Significantly for the events and conferences industry, 74 percent of Millennials surveyed said attending a live event expands their perspective more than reading about things online.

Here’s the kicker: Three-quarters of Millennials also prefer experiences to things, according to the survey.

“The biggest buzzword right now is FOMO [fear of missing out], and that’s a huge factor for Millennials,” said Aubri Nowowiejski, 28, an executive producer at Coterie Spark, a global meeting and corporate event-planning firm based in Houston, Texas.

“It’s all about projecting to your social media network, and painting a picture of a phenomenal lifestyle. They chase experiences over things to get those likes and comments and interactions, and that dopamine fix,” said Nowowiejski, who founded the Student Event Planners Association in 2009 while a student at Texas State University. It currently has more than 2,000 members nationwide.

In fact, the study found that nearly half of Millennials surveyed attend live events so they have something to share online; and 78 percent reported enjoying seeing other people’s experiences on social media.

The Millennial obsession with FOMO and cultivating the perfect social media feed can be a boon to consumer-focused marketing events, especially if they are free, but it also presents challenges to conference and meetings organizers who value engagement. In an effort to lure the young demographic, organizers may reach for the unique “wow” factor, and wind up with an event that is more style than substance.

“That’s one of my biggest frustrations: I want us to put down our phones,” said Nowowiejski. “We’re experiencing the whole world through a lens and we’re not present in the moment, and it is an issue. Conference planners are trying to integrate social media and meet Millennials where they are. You go to a conference and are told to live-tweet, but if I’m tweeting, am I really absorbing what the speaker is saying? It’s a double-edged sword. What did you really experience if you didn’t put your phone down?”

But event organizers can capitalize on FOMO in their strategy to get Millennial participants to more deeply engage. Events that require attendees to leave their phones before they enter a certain room create instant exclusivity simply because the experience can’t be shared on social media.

“Even though they’re not able to snap a picture for posting, they feel like they got an exclusive invite. Having no photography is something planners can play off of to get the phones out their hands,” Nowowiejski said.

Another challenge Nowowiejski cited is Millennials’ inexperience with and reluctance to engage in the real world. Though interacting on social media can be a pathway to human interaction, the Digital Generation’s actual networking skills are often highly undeveloped.

“We are super networkers because we grew up in a digital age, so we are used to online networking, but when you put us in an actual face to face environment, it’s very different,” Nowowiejski said. “Conferences or events in general are crucial for Millennials because they are realizing they are super-connected but disconnected at the same time.

“To develop these quality relationships, and advance their careers, Millennials know they need to be at these events where they have unparalleled experiences and opportunities to get educated and network. Event organizers almost need to push them and guide them through the process,” Nowowiejski said.

One way to convince Millennials to engage and network, “beyond just giving them alcohol,” is through activities, particularly gamification, she said. Collecting coins or checking in at certain stations during a conference can deliver the same satisfaction and even the all-important dopamine fix. Engaging through digitized games makes networking — often seen as a daunting task — fun and less intimidating. Likewise, planners who include incentives for attendees to bring a friend are likely to get a higher turnout among Millennials.

“They know they need to network, but it’s like standing in front of a 500-person audience; it’s so scary and frightening for them to go by themselves. They need a friend or someone they know at an event. Very few will take the initiative to go on their own,” Nowowiejski said.

Sticker shock is another hurdle. Much of the networks and information accessed online comes at low or no cost, and younger Millennials may not view investing in themselves as a priority.

“Millennials are cheap and they are used to getting everything for free, so that’s another challenge for the event industry. It can be the most amazing event out there, but if there is a high price, it can be a barrier. They’re thinking, ‘I can join a Facebook group for free; why would I pay $1000 to meet the same people in person?'”

Nowowiejski noted that recent college graduates are more likely to have the penny-pinching mindset, and simply may not have the funds, while folks five years into their career are more likely to make the investment. More than likely, though, it’s employers who will be footing the bill.

[erucchii92]

Hey guys! Close your eyes and imagine, you’re attending a conference with a panel consisting of your favourite authors or even your favourite fictional characters. Last week, Cara at Eventbrite contacted me to do just that for a project they’re working on. And because we never get to have foreign authors coming to Malaysia for events (well, Sarah J Maas did came last year I think), I went crazy with this.

For those who may or may not know, Eventbrite is the largest self-service ticketing platform in the world that helps people find and plan events.

  J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series

Rick Riordan, author of the Percy Jackson series

Cassandra Clare, author of the Shadowhunter Chronicles

Questions I will ask:

J.K. Rowling. In the Harry Potter books, there are individuals that can speak to serpent-based creatures. How did you create Parseltongue? What tip would you give others who wanted to create their own language?

Rick Riordan. I have always been in love with Greek and Roman mythology, however I always find it hard finding well-written YA fantasy books about Greek and Roman myths. What books, for research purposes, would you recommend to aspiring authors who wants to write a book with the aforementioned myths?

Cassandra Clare. A couple of years ago, someone had asked on if you would write a trilogy or series that focused on Malec. Your answer was no. Now, in 2017, have you reconsider it?

  Holly Bourne, author of Am I Normal Yet?

Matthew Quick, author of Every Exquisite Thing

Kathleen Glasgow, author of Girl In Pieces

Questions I will ask:

What is the most difficult aspect when it comes to writing a realistic portrayal of mental illness?

Oftentimes, it was said that great stories are told for an individual’s own experience. However, for those who has not suffered from mental illness, what kind of research would you recommend to ensure that the portrayal of mental illness is accurate?

  Stephanie Perkins, author of Anna and the French Kiss

Maggie Stiefvater, author of The Raven Cycle

Holly Bourne, author of the Spinster Club series

Cassandra Clare, author of the Shadowhunter Chronicles

Question I will ask:

How did you write such a beautiful and real friendship that managed to capture all our heart?

  Benjamin Alire Sáenz, author of Aristotle and Dante Discovers the Secrets of the Universe

Madeline Miller, author of The Song of Achilles

Questions I will ask:

Madeline Miller. What made you decide to explore the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus as a romantic one?

Benjamin Alire Sáenz. What tips can you give to prevent writers from stereotyping their LGBTQ+ characters?

  Alec Lightwood from The Mortal Instruments

Evie from Am I Normal Yet

Mira from Fans of the Impossible Life

Magnus Bane from The Mortal Instruments

It was so hard to choose for this, because if I could, I would’ve list down all my favourite characters. Because of that, I decided to choose a category before choosing my characters. For this panel, I would like my favourite characters to talk about diversity awareness. Wouldn’t that be nice? So, for this panel, I chose Alec, who is gay; Evie, a girl with OCD; Mira, a girl suffering from depression, and a POC; and Magnus Bane, a bisexual warlock and also Indonesian from his mother’s side (plus, he understood what it was like to be discriminated against because he is a warlock).

Where will the panel takes place?

Of couse, in Kuching, Sarawak. If anything interesting happens (such as Sarah J Maas Asian tour last time), it’s always in Kuala Lumpur. I would need to get on an airplane to get there. So of course, if this conference were to happen, it would be in my hometown.

Pullman Hotel, Kuching. I’ve been to Education Fairs at Pullman Hotel, and the halls are quite big so I think it’s a good place. Besides, it’s close to my home so easier for me to drive there. I kind of have no sense of direction, so if it’s someplace far, I am sure to get lost.

Would you like to go to this conference if it was real? Who are the authors you’d like OR fictional characters, for your own dream panel? Comment down below and tell me who they are. I’d love to hear from all of you :)

My Dream Book Panel Hey guys! Close your eyes and imagine, you're attending a conference with a panel consisting of your favourite authors or even your favourite fictional characters.