This video highlights some of the fascinating activities that took place at the USA Science and Engineering Festival in Washington, D.C. in late October. Lockheed Martin, a major sponsor, put this vid together. Check out our science cheerleaders (who performed at the festival)!

ScienceForCitizens.net, the sister site of ScienceCheerleader that matches volunteers to scientific researchers in need of some help, was among 11 companies selected by GoodCompany Ventures to help “accelerate the growth of early-stage ventures that generate profit and have a positive social impact. GoodCompany Ventures provides support, facilities, and mentoring to socially conscious entrepreneurs who can make a difference.”

My partners and I just wrapped up week one of this summer bootcamp and we’ve already learned a great deal. Totally psyched about the future of ScienceForCitzens.net!

If you’re an entrepreneur, you may want to consider checking out an incubator. Here are some of the services Good Company Ventures, for example, provides to its participants:

• Access to Infrastructure: Conference and office space as well as technology infrastructure within our facility in downtown Philadelphia.
• Access to Advisors: GoodCompany Ventures has assembled mentors, preferred providers, expert advisors, industry leaders, and start-up gurus.
• Access to Capital: GoodCompany Ventures will facilitate a first investment round by assembling representatives from leading VC firms and angel investors.

We are in “good company” here at Good Company. I hope to be able to share information about the 10 other start ups soon.

For those of you who are active members of ScienceForCitizens.net, thanks for being early adopters, thought-leaders, influencers… Huge thanks to our founding sponsor, Science House, and early partners: the USA Science and Engineering Festival, the Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science, and Scientific Blogging.

We are accepting a limited number of “launch sponsorships” so if you are interested, just let me know.

Larry Bock, the unflappable founder of the USA Science and Engineering Festival, sent the following message to 40,000+ people this morning. Hope you can joins us!

“We are very pleased to announce our partnership with Science For Citizens, a brand new website co-founded by Darlene Cavalier (who blogs at the Science Cheerleader) and Michael Gold (a science editor and writer). This site aggregates citizen science projects (also known as amateur science projects or participatory research) and enlists volunteers to get their hands dirty with science. Discover Magazine calls it the Amazon.com of citizen science, Innocentive gives it two big thumbs up, and the National Science Foundation’s Science and Media Site says “Sci4Cits may by the solution to fragmentation, a serious issue for the informal science education community and its followers.”

Science For Citizens, in collaboration with the USA Science and Engineering Festival, the Coalition for the Public Understanding of Science(COPUS), and Science House, will have a major presence at the Festival playing host to numerous hands-on, citizen science activities.

Visitors at the Sci4Cits exhibit will have the opportunity to sort galaxies, test water quality, identify birds and fireflies, and participate in lots of other honest-to-goodness scientific research activities. Sci4Cits is now accepting applications from interested citizen science project leaders who wish to participate in this first-of-its-kind expo by demonstrating activities with thousands of festival goers-turned-scientists. If you lead a citizen science project and would like to participate in the Sci4Cits exhibit, please complete this brief surveybefore April 30 so we can better accommodate your goals and requirements. If you do not run a citizen science project, but would like to volunteer to help demonstrate one or more, that’s great, too! Just complete the contact information and make a note of your interest to be a volunteer in the final comments section (last question). Feel free to email Sci4Cits at info@scienceforcitizens.net with any questions or comments.”

Stay tuned for an announcement re: Science Cheerleader’s presence at this event. It includes a performance by a troop of pro cheerleaders-turned-scientists and engineers!

Come meet the Science Cheerleader team, see professional cheerleaders-turned-scientists and engineers as they dance and cheer on science, and get your hands dirty doing science with ScienceForCitizens.net activities!

At the USA Science and Engineering Festival
Festival Dates: 10/10/10 – 10/24/10
Expo on the National Mall: October 23 and 24, 2010

Larry Bock is THE reason this widely anticipated festival will take place. Building upon his success with the San Diego Science Festival, Bock’s current mission in life is to have science take over Washington, DC!

A little bit about Larry, whom I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with on several occasions. He’s a successful serial entrepreneur who has founded, co-founded or financed the early stage growth of 40 companies in the life and physical sciences from inception to achieving an aggregate market capitalization of in excess of $30 Billion.   He and his wife have contributed $250,000 of their own money toward the Science Festival effort and he’s  working full-time on the Festival and is not drawing any compensation. His drive is inherent in his daughter, too. (Check out her clever website where she markets her handmade headbands.)

Here’s Bock’s vision for the U.S.A. Science and Engineering Festival:

The Inaugural USA Science & Engineering Festival will be the country’s first national science festival and will descend on the Washington, D.C. area in the Fall of 2010. The Festival promises to be the ultimate multi-cultural, multi-generational and multi-disciplinary celebration of science in the United States. The culmination of the Festival will be a two-day Expo in the nation’s capital that will give over 500 science & engineering organizations from all over the United States the opportunity to present themselves with a hands-on, fun science activity to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers.

Will you be there when science takes over the National Mall? I will, in three exhibits. Come visit the Science Cheerleader team in the following exhibits (click here for current list of exhibitors–200 strong already!)

Brains and Beauty coexist. If you need proof, come see professional cheerleaders-turned-scientists and engineers as they dance and cheer on science!

Give Your Brain a Makeover (And Meet Cheerleaders!)
Come take the fun, online adult science literacy quiz (featuring the 76ers cheerleaders) and become a bonafide Science Literate! Meet the Science Cheerleader and widely acclaimed expert and author, Prof. Trefill. Plus, chat with professional cheerleaders-turned-scientists and engineers who will talk about ways they bridged these seemingly different worlds.

And activities from my soon-to-be-launched mega site, ScienceForCitizens.net , will be featured as well:

Get your hands dirty with science through ScienceforCitizens.net. Interactive demos of research projects you can join. From bugs to birds, kitchen chemistry to computer games, environmental monitoring to electronic music. Win a science trip!

I hope to see you at the USA Science and Engineering Festival in October, 2010.