Goal
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The goal of the MS Futures Group is to envision and realize superior technology-aided futures that have a widespread beneficial impact on humanity.
Bio
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Melanie Swan is a science, technology, and philosophy futurist at
the MS Futures Group in Palo Alto, California.
She founded the participatory medicine research organization
DIYgenomics in 2010.
Ms. Swan's educational background includes an MBA in Finance and Accounting from the
Wharton School of the
University of Pennsylvania, a BA in French and Economics from
Georgetown University,
and recent coursework in philosophy, biology, nanotechnology, physics, and computer science.
She is a faculty member at
Singularity University and the
University of the Commons,
an Affiliate Scholar at the
Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies,
and a contributor to the
Edge's Annual Essay Question
(2012,
2013).
Ms. Swan's career has focused on philosophy, research, finance,
and entrepreneurship, including founding a technology startup company,
GroupPurchase, which aggregated small business buying groups.
She served as Director of Research at Telecoms Consultancy
Ovum RHK, and previously held
management and finance positions at
iPass in Silicon Valley,
J.P. Morgan in New York,
Fidelity in Boston, and
Arthur Andersen in Los Angeles.
Ms. Swan serves as an advisor to research foundations, government agencies, corporations,
and startups and is active in the community promoting science and technology, and opportunities for women.
She designs professional and educational simulations, including "Discontinuity Futures,"
"Being an Entrepreneur" and "The Trader's Pit."
Ms. Swan is the former Treasurer of San Francisco-based non-profit
Equal Rights Advocates,
an Advisory Board member of the
Foundational Questions Institute,
Lifeboat Foundation, and
Accelerating Studies Foundation,
a presenter at the
Expanding Your Horizons
math and science conference,
and co-moderator of the
Philadelphia and
Boulder
Future Salons.
Ms. Swan speaks French, Spanish, and Portuguese, and enjoys reading, international travel, and kick-boxing.
Public Appearances
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- "Next-generation Personal Genomic Studies: Extending Social Intelligence Genomics to Cognitive Performance Genomics in Quantified Creativity and Thinking Fast and Slow"
AAAI 2013 Spring Symposia: Data Driven Wellness: From Self-Tracking to Behavior Change, March 25-27, 2013, Palo Alto CA
- "Digital Art and Philosophy"
University of the Commons Winter Semester Class, February 12 - March 12, 2013, San Francisco CA
course slides
- "Personalized Medicine and You!"
Health Technology Forum, September 27, 2012, San Francisco CA
- "Prediction Markets Trading Simulation"
NASA Ames Singularity University, July 19, 2011, Mountain View CA
- "Biotechnicity 2.0: Computation-enabled Philosophical Advance in the Epistemology of Human Biology and the Ontology of Bioidentity"
Symposium on Computational Philosophy, AISB/IACAP World Congress (in Honor of Alan Turing, 1912-1954), July 2-6, 2012, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK. Paper accepted, not presented
- "New Deleuzian Realities: the Deterritorialized Design of Science, Economics, and Philosophy"
5th International Deleuze Studies Conference 2012, June 25-27, 2012, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA
- "Extending Subjectivity with the Climacian Framework: A Comprehensive Fragment and Postscript of a Conceptual Application of Kierkegaard and the Quest for Subjective Truth"
2012 Southwest Seminar in Continental Philosophy, June 7-9, 2012, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT
- "Health Futures: Participatory Medicine and Crowdsourced Research"
Media X, May 16, 2012, Stanford University, Stanford, CA
- "Human Body 2.0: Redesign, Democracy, And Next-Generation Intelligence"
CONTACT Cultures of the Imagination, March 29, 2012, Mountain View, CA
- "DIYgenomics citizen science health research studies: personal wellness and preventive medicine through collective intelligence"
AAAI Symposium: Self-tracking and Collective Intelligence for Personal Wellness, March 26-28, 2012, Stanford, CA
- "Workshop: Building a Culture of Empathy"
1st Annual South Bay Womyn's Conference, March 17, 2012, San Jose, CA
- "Stock Market Basics Trading Simulation"
Expanding Your Horizons Math and Science Conference, March 17, 2012, San Jose, CA
- "The Black Swan: Prologue, Chapters 1 and 2"
Black Swan Discussion Group, February 12, Burlingame, CA
- "Participative Healthcare"
Advancing the Tohoku Region: An Emerging System of Support for Human Life & Health in Japan’s Post-Disaster Region, February 2, 2012, Tokyo Japan
- "Workshop: Building a Culture of Empathy"
She's Geeky, January 27-29, 2012, Mountain View, CA
- "Overview of participant-driven medicine: health social networks, personalized genomics, and integrated health data streams"
Opening talk, Interpharma Patient-Driven Health Care and Medicine conference, November 10, 2011, Lausanne Switzerland
- "Translational reverse-aging research: latest advances"
LVMH Recherche Scientific Symposium, October 27, 2011, London UK
- "Inconsistency Robustness and the Singularity"
Inconsistency Robustness, August 18, 2011, Stanford, CA
- "Open-source preventive medicine: citizen science genomics"
OSCON, July 28, 2011, Portland, OR
- "Genomic self-hacking: citizen science and the realization of personalized medicine"
Quantified Self, NASA AMES, July 19, 2011, Mountain View, CA
- "Prediction Markets Trading Simulation"
NASA Ames Singularity University, July 19, 2011, Mountain View CA
- "DIYgenomics: An Open Platform for Democratizing the Genome"
LASER Leonardo Interdisciplinary Cultural Events, March 7, 2011, San Francisco, CA
- "Reality: analog, digital, or information compression continuum?"
FQXi Foundational Questions Institute meeting, March 5, 2011, Atherton, CA
- "Patient-organized genomic research studies"
Scripps Future of Genomic Medicine IV Conference, March 3-4, 2011, San Diego, CA
- "The application of genome-wide association studies of aging in a patient-driven clinical trial"
Bay Area Aging Meeting, December 4, 2010, Stanford CA
- "DNA Testing: Living Longer Via Personal Genomics"
Personalized Life Extension Conference, October 9-10, 2010, Burlingame, CA
- "The application of genome-wide association studies of aging in a patient-driven clinical trial"
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Personal Genomes 3rd Annual Meeting, September 10-12, 2010, Cold Spring Harbor NY
- "Multigentic Analysis of Consumer Genomes for Health Risk Prediction"
Computational Systems Bioinformatics 2010, August 16-18, 2010, Stanford CA
- "Economia 3.0 e Mercados de Previsão"
Crie Futuros , August 16, 2010, São Paulo Brazil,
DOM Network Interview
- "Future of Life and the Universe"
Foundational Questions Institute strategy meeting, August 1, 2010, Atherton CA
- "Prediction Markets Trading Simulation"
NASA Ames Singularity University, July 29, 2010, Mountain View CA
- "DIYgenomics: an open platform for citizen science"
OSCON, July 21, 2010, Portland, OR, interview,
video
- "Crisis Telediagnosis mobile app"
Stanford University Clear 4G WiMAX Developers Symposium, June 15, 2010, Palo Alto CA
(Android mobile app; Application description)
- "DIYgenomics Citizen Science"
Harvard University 2010 Humanity+ Summit, June 12-13, 2010, Cambridge MA
- "Review of cancer risk prediction in direct-to-consumer genomic services" (poster)
Stanford University Canary Foundation Early Detection Symposium, May 25-27, 2010, Stanford CA
- "Citizen Genome Privacy and Sharing"
Stanford University Media X Identity and Privacy in Unified Communication Environments, May 14, 2010, Stanford CA
- "Democratizing the Genome"
UC Santa Cruz BIL 2010, May 1, 2010, Santa Cruz CA
- "Hacking a Bioinformatics Android App"
UC Berkeley Bay Area Bioinformatics Forum, April 10, 2010, Berkeley CA,
photo
- "Personal Genome Revolution"
NASA Ames CONTACT 2010, March 26-28, 2010, Mountain View CA
- "DIY Genomics"
Hacker Dojo Silicon Valley Transhumanist Meetup Group, March 27, 2010, Mountain View CA
- "Revolutionizing human mental performance with artificial intelligence"
Georgetown University Washington Evolutionary Society, February 28, 2010, Washington DC
- "DIYgenomics - Personal Genome Research"
NY Quantified Self Meetup, February 17, 2010, New York NY
- "Personal Genome Citizen Science"
She's Geeky, January 29-31, 2010, Mountain View CA
- "Futures Frameworks Simulation"
NASA Ames Singularity University, November 9, 2009, Mountain View CA
(press: CNET,
Popular Science)
- "New Banks and Currencies"
Create Futures IberoAmérica, Enthusiasmo Cultural, Brazil, October 14, 2009, São Paulo Brazil,
video
- "Direct-to-Consumer Genomics Offerings: What you need to know"
NCHPEG 12th Annual Meeting, September 23, 2009, Bethesda MD
- "Review of Multigenic Condition Risk Assessment in Direct-to-Consumer Genomics Offerings"
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Personal Genomes 2nd Annual Meeting, September 14, 2009, Cold Spring Harbor NY
- "Review of Multigenic Condition Risk Assessment in Direct-to-Consumer Genomics Offerings"
SENS4 Aging Conference, September 3-7, 2009, Cambridge UK
- "Futures Frameworks Simulation"
NASA Ames Singularity University, August 5, 2009, Mountain View CA
- "Future of Life Sciences"
NASA Ames CONTACT 2009, April 3, 2009, Mountain View CA
- "Ultimate Possibilities for Life and Technology"
FQXi, March 8, 2009, Grand Cayman
- "Future of Technology"
Technology and Society Committee, November 11, 2008, Mountain View CA
-
"Bioengineering: Making Life From Scratch" National Institutes of Health, September 25, 2008, Bethesda MD
- "Clean Technology Initiatives"
Women in Technology International, October 15, 2008, Santa Clara CA
- "Democratic Capital"
Social Capital Markets, October 13, 2008, San Francisco CA
- "Virtual Worlds Data Visualization"
NCSL International, August 6, 2008, Second Life
- "Visualizing Real Data in a Virtual World"
Linden Labs, July 2, 2008, Second Life
- "Biology Futures"
Santa Clara University Biology, May 22, 2008, Santa Clara CA
- Moderator, Founders Panel,
Women 2.0 Conference, May 10, 2008, Stanford CA
- "Virtual Worlds"
Deloitte Technology Expo, May 9-10, 2008, San Francisco CA
- "Virtual Worlds Data Visualization"
CONTACT, April 5, 2008, Mountain View CA
- "Virtual Worlds as an Interaction Platform"
United Kingdom Civil Service Live, April 3, 2008, Second Life
- "Enterprise Virtual Worlds"
Virtual Worlds 2008, April 3, 2008, New York NY
- "Data Visualization in Second Life"
Life 2.0, March 17, 2008, Second Life
-
"Futurist Workshop" and "Virtual Worlds Data Visualization"
SciBarCamp, March 15, 2008, Toronto Canada
- "Future Blogger"
MemeBox, March 1, 2008, New York NY
- "Future of Technology"
Santa Clara University, January 28, 2008, Santa Clara CA
- "Virtual World Valuation"
Deloitte, November 28, 2007, New York NY
- "Virtual Worlds"
Foresight Institute Vision Weekend, November 3, 2007, Sunnyvale CA
- "Future of Technology"
She's Geeky, October 23, 2006, Mountain View CA
-
"Imagining the Internet" Elon University, the Pew Internet Project
- "Get Deeply Geeky"
BlogHer, July 2006, San Jose CA
- NIH Biomedical Computing Group, Bethesda, MD
"The Nexus of Biology and Computing" May 2007
Futurist review of "The Black Swan" by Nassim Taleb, June 2007
Futurist review of "The Singularity is Near" by Ray Kurzweil, February 2006
Futurist review of "On Intelligence" by Jeff Hawkins, April 2006
Futurist review of "How Doctors Think" by Jerome Groopman, September 2007
Futurist review of "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell, March 2006
Futurist review of "Collapse" by Jared Diamond, June 2006
- Accelerating Change 2005, Stanford CA
- Accelerating Change 2004, Stanford CA
- Accelerating Change 2003, Stanford CA
Consulting Clients
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Board, Advisory and Other Affiliations
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- Accelerating Studies Foundation , Advisor
- BioBricks Foundation, Advisor
- BlogHer, Advisor
- CureTogether, Advisor
- Equal Rights Advocates, Former Treasurer
- Expanding Your Horizons, Advisor
- Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi), Advisor
- GreenPhosphor, Advisor
- High Adventure Game Designs, Inc., Advisor
- Hot Interconnects, Advisor
- JS-Kit, Advisor
- Lifeboat Foundation, Advisor
- Metaverse Roadmapping Project, Advisor
- Neuro Linguistic Programming Institute of California, Certification Holder
- mBuzzy, Inc. , Advisor
- Personal Wealth Journal, Columnist
- Sand Hill Angels, Co-founder
- Singularity University, Advisor and Instructor
Employment Experience
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Education
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