Science Foo Camp, also known as SciFoo, is a series of interdisciplinary scientific conferences organized by O'Reilly Media (FOO stands for "Friends of O'Reilly"), Nature Publishing Group and Google Inc., based on an idea from Linda Stone.[1] The event is based on the spirit and format of Foo Camp, an unconference focused on emerging technology, and is designed to encourage collaboration between scientists who would not typically work together. As such, it is particularly unusual among scientific conferences in three ways; it is invitation-only, the invitees come from many different areas of science rather than one subject (such as physics, chemistry or biology), and the meeting has no fixed agenda; the invited scientists, technologists and policy makers set the conference program during the conference itself, based on their shared professional interests and enthusiasms.
The first event in 2006 was held under the Chatham House Rule (meaning that what is said at the conference cannot be attributed to a specific person). The policy at the second event was to allow open reporting by default; attendees were expected to indicate if their comments were off the record.
Science Foo Camp takes place annually at the Googleplex campus in Mountain View, California, United States. It is currently organized by Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Media, Timo Hannay of Nature and Chris DiBona of Google. The event has taken place five times:
A twelve-minute YouTube video made at SciFoo 2009 is available.
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