A Public Laboratory group is just starting up in Texas, read below for more information and to get involved! Current Activities: -Organizing SXSW panel -Spectroscopic analysis on food products -Outreach: Austin is rich with groups focused on environmental and sustainability issues (see The Unforeseen for the provenance of the Save Our Springs Alliance in the early 90's, focused on preserving the Barton Creek watershed and Barton Springs). Zilker Park surrounds the pool and would be perfect for kite and balloon flying amongst people enjoying and curious. Another group to reach out to is The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center (for tracking the spread of native and invasive plant species, the effects of drought, etc.). In short, the combination of high tech + green in Austin is fertile soil for your work. July 6, 2011 - 4:00PM CST Phone Conference about SXSW Panel Notes: -Panel/workshop- PLOTS presence at SXSW -Confronted by app deadlines- July 15th- by the time we get to SXSW, should have partnerships with local groups, organizations, etc- need for tools and skills to bring to mix (currently in idea stage)- should be conservative in terms of saying where we will be a year from now- use this as a planning/goal setting process Greg - start up cit. sci. group tightly aligned with PLOTS What type of event- panel? workshop? ind. speaker? in addition, do an un-conference workshop that could be planned later on Collaboration w/ Dorkbot community? Organize a tent next to conference area- possible group to partner with to have a presence- open up to several different exhibitions SXSW panel is secondary to main goal of developing sustainability in working relationships Ideas for the panel: Is there a theme for SXSW this year? Provide a framework for panel topic -Community inspired panels- how they intersect with technology, software/hardware that comes out of it -Talk about the Gulf Coast or the online community and what it means globally -Panel size is 2-4, a few diff. formats or could do a workshop- all 60 minute formats Jen- talk about portions of Gowanus and Newark/NJ Greg - do a formal talk instead of a workshop format within the SXSW-organize workshop outside of this... Online vs. Offline community- diff. levels of stakeholders- everyone wants to know how to bridge gap and this is strength for this project Good for social change and creating group for x Large Scale est. project (GC/ env. justice perspective), in the works (Austin), Jen (Gowanus), other PL staff (online community- technical side- development of tools and techniques)- convey geekiness of DIY science projects July 15th panel picker entries, until August 5th to edit proposal- just one panel proposal bio about each of the speakers Nation Builder - to use for organizing in Austin- general purpose platform- keep track of those helping out as well as doing fundraising and for organizing events- launched just in April Contacts: