But our panelists are pretty bright…

Skeptech’s panels are not just time-filler – they are sharp, interesting, occasionally divisive, sometimes rowdy discussions between our speakers, community members, and students. Don’t miss them.

Check out the titles and topics at the bottom of this page.

What does this mean?

Hang out with the Skeptech crew, and the likes of Rebecca Watson, Jason Thibeault, Surly Amy, and others! Force us to play horribly difficult games like Super Meat Boy & Amnesia by donating! Play Bomber Man with us!

On the 22nd, this page will be outfitted with a Google Hangout, Twitch Stream & Chat, and an easy way to donate to the Skeptech conference (paypal).

Here are some initial incentives (more will be added):

• $5 to be a member of our Organ Trail team.
• At $200, we’ll buy Super Meat Boy and fail horribly.
• At $1000, we’ll buy Amnesia, and play it at full-volume in the dark. You’ll be able to watch our horror on the hangout.

We hope you’ll join us! Stay tuned for a rough schedule of what we’ll be playing, who will be joining us, and when.

No, but seriously, our 2014 lineup is kickass. Help us welcome them and make this year a success!

Bethany Brookshire (Scicurious)

Bethany Brookshire has a B.S. in biology and a B.A. in philosophy from The College of William and Mary, and a Ph.D. in physiology and pharmacology from Wake Forest University School of Medicine. She is the guest editor of The Open Laboratory Anthology of Science Blogging, 2009, and the winner of the Society for Neuroscience Next Generation Award and the Three Quarks Daily Science Writing Award, among others. She blogs at Eureka! Lab and at Scicurious. You can follow her on Twitter as @scicurious.

Heina Dadabhoy

Heina Dadabhoy [hee-na dad-uh-boy] spent her childhood as a practicing Muslim who never in her right mind would have believed that she would grow up to be an atheist feminist secular humanist, or, in other words, a Skepchick. She has been an active participant in atheist organizations and events in and around Orange County, CA since 2007. She is currently writing A Skeptic’s Guide to Islam. You can follow her on Facebook or Google+, and on twitter as @futilityfiles. You will most certainly not be sorry.

David Tamayo

David Tamayo is president and founder of Hispanic American Freethinkers (HAFree), the national organization that promotes critical thinking skills and secularism among Latino and Hispanic communities. He is the host of the HAFree Podcast, one of the few skeptical podcasts available in Spanish. David has a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from George Washington University and a Master’s degree in Management of Information Technology from University of Virginia at Charlottesville. He is currently the Vice President of Technology for a D.C. company. You can find more about his activism and HAFree here.

Jessica Kirsner

Jessica Kirsner is the Development Associate for the Secular Student Alliance. She was raised in a religious Texas community, but grew up in a reform Jewish household in which critical thinking and science were valued. She has a BA in biology and a minor in political science from the University of Miami. As an undergraduate, she was active with UM’s SSA affiliate, SHAARKS, but has now graduated to big kid activism.

And as always, if you like who we’ve booked and want to help Skeptech happen, Donate!

Kate Greene

San Francisco-based author and journalist, Kate Greene, writes about topics that range from laser physics and artificial intelligence to heart transplants and human spaceflight. Her work has appeared in Discover magazine, The Economist, the New Yorker Elements blog, and U.S. News & World Report, among others. Kate has been an invited speaker and panel moderator at numerous conferences and events and has lectured on writing at Vanderbilt University and San Francisco State University. Last year, she was an astronaut stand-in for NASA’s four month simulated Mars mission called HI-SEAS, an isolation experiment widely covered by the Associated Press, MSNBC, and Space.com. Her 2014 book called Reality Mining: Using Big Data to Engineer a Better World, co-authored with Nathan Eagle, will be published later this year by MIT Press. Kate can be found online at kategreene.net and @kgreene.

Hemant Mehta

Hemant Mehta is the editor of FriendlyAtheist.com and the author of I Sold My Soul on eBay (2007) and The Young Atheist’s Survival Guide (2012). He has appeared on Fox News and CNN and serves in leadership positions for atheist organizations nationwide, including the Secular Student Alliance and Foundation Beyond Belief. When he’s not writing, Hemant is a National Board Certified high school math teacher in the suburbs of Chicago.

“If atheists thrive on the Internet, it makes perfect sense to devote a conference to the intersection of skepticism and technology. I’m thrilled to be a part of this event for the second time!”

Jesse Galef

Jesse Galef is the former Communications Director of the Secular Student Alliance, and currently serves the Humanist Community at Harvard as their National Community Coordinator. Jesse has appeared several times on national news networks including CNN as an SSA representative, speaks at conferences about philosophy, rationality, and psychology, and writes at www.measureofdoubt.com.

And as always, if you like who we’ve booked and want to help Skeptech happen, Donate!

Release two more speakers of course! And these two are particularly cool. Honestly we’re kind of intimidated. By ourselves, I mean. Are you sure you’re ready for how cool Skeptech 2 is going to be?

Ian Cromwell

Ian Cromwell (MSc) is a health economist with a background in health studies, epidemiology, and biostatistics. Ian’s research interests include health technology assessment, health services and policy research, and cost-effectiveness. As ‘Crommunist’, Ian is a commentator on issues relating to freethought, skepticism, and politics, with a specific focus on feminism and anti-racism as applications of critical thinking. Formerly at Freethought Blogs, Ian now blogs independently at http://crommunist.com.

Rebecca Watson

Rebecca leads a team of skeptical female activists at Skepchick.org and appears on the weekly Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe podcast. She travels around the world delivering entertaining talks on science, atheism, feminism, and skepticism. There is currently an asteroid orbiting the sun with her name on it. You can follow her every fascinating move on Twitter @rebeccawatson.

From Rebecca: ”Skeptech 2014 is the single greatest human achievement to date. Missing it will be like missing the comet that wiped out the dinosaurs.”

If you like who we’ve booked and want to help Skeptech happen, Donate!

We were recently informed that conferences typically have speakers. We were flabbergasted!

… Just kidding. We have the most rockin’ lineup of speakers we’ve ever had. Some of that’s because Chelsea, our co-head, is a very convincing person, and some of that’s due to straight up cash money. Either way, Skeptech 2: Electric Boogaloo is going to be ridiculously fun! We’ll be releasing a number of speakers every day for the next four days, starting TODAY. Without further delay, our first two speaker releases:

Debbie Goddard

Debbie Goddard is the director of African Americans for Humanism, a program of the Council for Secular Humanism, and the director of Outreach at the Center for Inquiry–Transnational in Amherst, NY. Before working for CFI, she participated in local freethought groups in the greater Philadelphia region and helped organize and support campus groups internationally as a student volunteer. She has also been involved with progressive issues and LGBT activism.

Tim Farley

Tim Farley is the creator of the website What’s The Harm?, a resource where stories are documented and categorized about the damage done when people fail to use critical thinking skills. Farley was also instrumental in the apprehension of spammer “David Mabus“. He is a Research Fellow with the James Randi Educational Foundation. Additionally, he blogs at http://skeptools.com.

From Tim: “Technology in skepticism is my specialty, so I knew I had to be involved in Skeptech in 2013. The organizers did such a fantastic job with it, you’d have to bar the door to keep me away from the 2014 edition! I’m sure it will be a blast.”

If you like who we’ve booked and want to help Skeptech happen, Donate!

Go here to review your donation options (Indiegogo – with fantastic awards, paypal, and ye ole-fashion’d check).

Thank you!

Register for free here.

*AUCTION ENDS FRIDAY 11/1 1:30PM CDT.

We don’t ask for a lot, the organizers of the SkepTech conference. We’re people of simple needs; food, drink, warmth, kittens, puppies, the occasional maniacal cackle as we contemplate tossing it all and start trying to take over the world instead of trying to brainstorm at 4 AM. Our delusions of grandeur aside, we’d like to ask you for something now; your financial support as we ramp up for Skeptech 2, which will take place April 4th-6th, 2014, in Minneapolis, MN.

But wait, you ask. Why on earth should I donate to ANOTHER conference? Are there not enough of the things already? Well, we’ve got a lot of reasons why you should. You’re going to find out a lot about them over the coming weeks, in addition to a roster of speakers and panelists that we think will rock your world. We’re organizing a program of such diversity and amazingness that has rarely been seen in these fields.

Before we say too much, we would like, here and now, to offer you the first of those reasons to support us. What we are offering you today is the opportunity to bid on a digital portrait of your dashing visage, executed by the one and only Zach Weinersmith, the author and illustrator of the wildly famous Sunday Morning Breakfast Cereal webcomic. This is an incredibly rare opportunity, not available since the days of Veláquez in the court of Philip IV, to have yourself preserved for all time, a masterpiece that future collectors will vie for to display on the walls of their own palaces. Needless to say, this is not something you’ll want to miss out on.

All proceeds of the auction will go to Skeptech to help us put on the most fabulous conference that we possibly can. You’re gonna want to be there.

Skeptech is an annual conference, organized by members and alumni of the Campus Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists student group at the University of Minnesota (CASH), the Secular Student Alliance at St. Cloud State University (SSA@SCSU), and the Secular Student Alliance at St. Olaf College (SSASTO). It explores the intersections of science, critical thinking, and innovation in addressing some of the most pressing societal and environmental problems humanity faces today. Held at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities – a hotbed of technological research and innovation in the heart of the Twin Cities Metropolitan area – the three-day conference aims to spark ideas, foster questions, and start conversations on the role of technology in improving, and ensuring there is, tomorrow.