Convergence 08, our new unconference, will be held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA on November 15-16. Early bird registration (available until Oct. 20) is cheap, just $70 for students and $145 for general. After Oct. 20, the price goes to $120 for students and $190 for non-students. Buy tickets now, get conversations with smart people later.

Convergence 08 is co-sponsored by humanity+ (formerly called the WTA), the Singularity Institute, Immortality Institute, Foresight Nanotech Institute, Methuselah Foundation, and the Long Now Foundation. Keynote will be given by futurist Paul Saffo. Because it’s an unconference, attendees will get to structure much of the conference program themselves, giving presentations on a variety of topics. People will be giving presentations simultaneously so there’ll be no boredom — you can wander from talk to talk and stick to your favorite. This conference is being marketed as the first and only forum dedicated to NBIC (nano-bio-info-cogno) technologies.

The day before the conference there is also a seminar on extinction risks, led by the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET) and the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN). The text for this academic seminar is the recently-released Global Catastrophic Risks.

Help make this conference a success by showing up and impressing us with how awesome and knowledgable you are. Squeeze extra value out by chatting up and taking photos with heavyweights like Ben Goertzel, Aubrey de Grey, Barney Pell, Nick Bostrom, James Hughes, and let’s not forget, that other guy, me.