BE Board:Dinner Discussion
For current website see begradboard.mit.edu
Monday Night Dinner Discussions at the BE RetreatUnder inspiration from responses to the "Future of BE" panel discussion, we have decided to make the Monday evening dinner a time to shoot the scientific breeze with your tablemates. We are all at MIT because of a simple fascination with the far-ranging and radical ideas that arise from scientific study and innovation. We hope that this discussion will delve back into that childlike wonder and those crazy and almost inconceivable ideas that we all have but don't get to share with our mentors or students. Logistics: Each table will ponder the applicability and possible impacts of biological engineering to a specific world problem. A leader at each table (we will need volunteers!) will prepare a 1-page summary of the world problem ahead of time, so that each table member will have at least be slightly informed of some of the facts and figures. After this initial seeding, feel free to take the discussion in any direction you want! We would also like to get feedback from the discussions on Tuesday, but the format is undecided. One possibility: a representative from each table presents both their most feasible (something that will probably happen in 5 years) and least feasible ideas to the group at large, just by standing up and discussing them. A second possibility: Each table generates a small cartoon/diagram/sketch of their most feasible/least feasible/coolest/funniest ideas, to be displayed at breakfast the next morning. Possible Topics and Table Leaders(Please add your name next to a topic if you are interested in researching/producing the one-page summary (we might do this in pairs) and initiating your table's discussion.)
Additional topic suggestionsThese are just a couple of additional topics which might generate interesting discussion, however, they don't follow the general pattern above.
--Amn 09:11, 9 February 2006 (EST) I really like these topics, it seems like general topics like this will be more successful at generating productive discussion between people with different research backgrounds. For instance, I don't think I'd have much to say about AIDS research among other things on the first list. In particular, amy's topics benefit from having people with diverse backgrounds since different labs/fields have different cultures regarding approaches to openness, problem-solving, teamwork, etc... I think almost anyone could contribute to these discussions. Though I would suggest for these topics (or even the first set) that we try and define some "discussion points" or provide examples since they are quite broad. That said, there are some topics from the first list that probably would be general enough to be approachable by all as well. --JK |