Many of our Guests of Honor have enjoyed their experience at Penguicon so much, they’ve come back again and again. We’re fortunate enough to have a number of them return this year! Our returning Emeritus include:
Bruce Schneier – Keynote Speaker (2007)
Rumors are, he PGP signs his grocery lists so that he can detect if someone has tampered with his milk.
If you’re even remotely concerned about internet security and privacy, you cannot miss Bruce’s keynote address. He has testified before Congress, is a frequent guest on television and radio, has served on several government committees, and is regularly quoted in the press.
In his spare time, he’s also the Chief Technology Officer of Resilient Systems, a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center, and a board member of EFF. He also has written 12 books, and has 250k readers of his blog, Schneier on Security. He’ll be speaking about his new book Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World.
Ed Mason – Gameface Labs (2014)
Founder & CEO of GameFace Labs, and creators of the world’s first 2.5K-pixel Wireless VR device – and it’s based on Android! Ed previously worked on cloud gaming with a view that streaming games themselves in 3D was a significant step above streaming videos, and went on to showcase a 3D Cloud gaming platform with a zero latency solution for stereo (and ultimately VR) cloud gaming at the EuroGamer Expo in London. Last year, he showed off the Mk5 prototype in the halls of Penguicon, and we’re really looking forward to seeing what advances Gameface has made in the last year. Check out his interview at last year’s Penguicon!
Erika Carlson – Girl Develop It (2014)
Erika Carlson is a software engineer and Apprentice Program Director at Detroit Labs, where she trains new programmers in web and mobile development. She is the co-founder of the Detroit chapter of Girl Develop It, a non-profit organization which provides affordable, beginner-friendly programming classes and a supportive learning community for women. She has taught programming to students ages 9-65, and believes that anyone can learn and benefit from basic programming skills. Erika is a happiness ninja, and says she believes in magic, needs at least six hugs a day, and tries to laugh as much as possible. Check out her interview at last year’s Penguicon!
Eric S. Raymond – founder, Open Source Initiative (2003)
Eric S. Raymond is an observer-participant anthropologist in the Internet hacker culture. His research has helped explain the decentralized open-source model of software development that has proven so effective in the evolution of the Internet.
Mr. Raymond is also a science fiction fan, a musician, an activist for the First and Second Amendments, and a martial artist with a Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do.
Open Soda (2012)
Based on Cory Doctorow’s Open Cola, Open Soda was our Hack of Honor for 2012.
Blasted Bill, 2005 Chair, created it to provide an Open Source Soda alternative for the Penguicon Community, and has been joined in recent years by Anthony Distel, who has been instrumental in creating new flavors.
Check out their surveys on our Facebook Group for examples of which flavors might be on tap this year!
Karl Schroeder – Author (2010)
Karl Schroeder is the author of Lockstep, Permanence, New York Times Notable Book Ventus, and the Sci-Fi Essential Book Lady Of Mazes.
Karl also is a technology professional, and has spoken at Penguicon on such topics as the emergence of the internet as a layer on the physical world, busting the metaphor of the brain as a computer, and technology as legislation.
One of his concepts, known as “thalience”, has become popular in the artificial intelligence community.
Nick Farr – Hackerspace evangelist (2013)
Nick Farr is an Accountant in New York City. Graduate students studying Hackerspaces (perhaps unfairly, he says) credit him with popularizing the concept of Hacker/Makerspaces in the Americas.
He pops up in other unusual places from time to time, such as being the emcee of record for Europe’s largest Hacker gatherings, the Postmaster of Burning Man and running point for smuggling former spies into Russia to meet with Edward Snowden. He grew up in Grand Rapids, graduated from the University of Michigan and pursued graduate studies dancing on the Vienna U-Bahn.
These days, he’s simply fortunate to be walking after surviving several (hilarious) brushes with death. He’s also a rockstar behind our Operations desk.