News

Dent Panels and Gatherings at San Diego Comic-Con Special Edition 2021

November 11, 2021 by Steve Broback

Science/Tech Panels, Exclusive Dinner at San Diego Comic-Con Special Edition

Join us at SDCC with your Dent Passport: Get your Passport here

We invite you to join us, our speakers, and members of the Dent community at the 2021 San Diego Comic-Con “Special Edition.”Our activities include: panels covering espionage and genetic engineering, an intimate VIP dinner. To be included in many of our social gatherings at SDCC (and many other great experiences nationwide), get your Dent Passport here.

If you are attending SDCC as badged press, we welcome you to request an invitation to the dinner by emailing kim at dentthefuture dot com .

With special guest presenters:

**Barbara Rae-Venter**
*PhD. Genetic Genealogist, named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people 2019*

**Jonna Mendez**
Author, Former Chief of Disguise for the CIA

For the past seven years, the Dent team has had the honor of organizing science and tech panels in collaboration with the San Diego Comic-Con editorial team. This effort has resulted in some of the most intriguing and forward-thinking talks to have appeared on the expo stages.

In addition, at our annual speaker reception we’ve hosted some of the most exciting technology demos to have ever been presented during Comic-Con:

Inventor Richard “Iron Man” Browning flies at Dent SDCC reception 2017. Photo by Kendall Whitehouse, copyright.

Thanks to the support of the SDCC team, this “special edition” gathering will be one of the best yet for Dent at Comic-Con.

We’d love you to become a member of the Dent community and be a part of our SDCC experience.

Our Panels

Open to all Comic-Con attendees are our two panels for 2021. They are: “Spies, Secrets, and Espionage: Technology and Tactics for Deception and Detection.”Also,“Accelerating Evolution – How Technology is Making Humans Super” We hope to see you at one (or both!)

Besides the experts listed above, our panelists will also include:

**Nathan Lents**
PhD. Professor of Biology, John Jay College

**Jamy Ian Swiss**
Magician and author/historian

**Michael Petrascheck**
PhD. Associate Professor at The Scripps Research Institute

**Brian Brown**
PhD. Professor, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

**Alessia Baccarini**
PhD. Assistant Professor, genetics and genomic sciences, Tisch Cancer Institute

Our Dinner

Featuring our speakers

Dent Passport holders, along with all of our speakers/panelists and their invited guests are welcome to attend our private dinner on Sunday November 28, from 6:00pm to 9:00pm in the Gaslamp district. Badged members of the press can request a seat by emailing kim at dentthefuture dot com.

Anyone who is a member of our Dent Passport program is automatically invited to this reception. SDCC is just one of many unforgettable experiences available to Passport members. You can learn more about membership and also get your passport here.

Dent Dinner Atlanta + Zac Brown Band/Collective Soul Private Concert

August 18, 2021 by Steve Broback

Join us for a Dent:Dinner Atlanta followed by a live concert featuring Zac Brown Band and Collective Soul on September 28, 2021. You can register here.

Denter Mike Cottmeyer has reserved Denter-only tickets to see Zac Brown Band and Collective Soul as they perform for his company in Atlanta, and we’d love to have you join us there.

We’ll sit down for dinner at 5:30 PM to give us time to enjoy our food, wine, and conversation before joining the concert at 7:30 PM. Zac Brown Band is a grammy-award winning southern rock band from Atlanta, and Collective Soul is probably best known for their songs “Shine,” “December”, and “The World I Know.”

This event is exclusively for Dent conference 2021 attendees and Passport members. Click here if you are neither, but are interested in joining the Dent community and having access to this gathering.

The performances will be great, but the opportunity to get out into the world and share music and a meal with what Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist David Horsey calls “an eclectic group of generally brilliant human beings” is the real reward.

Daniel DiGriz on “Practical Time Travel” – Or How to Go Back and Choose What You Really Want

August 16, 2021 by Steve Broback

Join us on Friday, August 27, 2021 at 11:00am PT as entrepreneur Daniel DiGriz shows us how to take control of the options life presents us, and how to create our own futures. RSVP here.

We have busy, often successful lives, by most definitions. But we were born dreamers, and there were things we always wanted to do that we never did. They don’t go on a bucket list, because they plug into our deepest sense of self, and they’re not one and done (attend the Olympics, ride a mechanical bull, hop islands in Greece). Instead, they require protracted time (learn to play guitar, speak Italian, write a mystery novel, earn a karate blackbelt). They moved us to explore who we are, but some “no” stopped us, time passed, and they don’t seem practical according to our current template for the future.

On Friday, August 27, 2021 at 11:00am PT, Daniel will demonstrate via readily available examples and practical tools, how we can change the template, overcome the constraint of time, topple the “no”, and even live longer so we have more options. RSVP here to claim your spot.

Daniel DiGriz is a serial entrepreneur, startup founder, and investor in numerous businesses and asset growth opportunities. By trade, he is a brand storyteller, enterprise evangelist, and community organizer for business. Daniel’s companies include MadPipe® which puts good ideas in front of a broader market with sales-aligned marketing, brand messaging, and campaign direction. And Free Agent Source, Inc.—the consulting firm that delivers enterprise projects through direct relationships with consultants. He also works closely with the Clark Hulings Foundation on its mission to leverage creative intelligence to drive innovation. Daniel’s website is digriz.com and his social profiles include Twitter, Youtube, and Linkedin.

Dent “Causeplay” Dinner San Diego

July 14, 2021 by Steve Broback

TLDR; Dent 2021 Conference ticket holders are invited to join us for a hosted dinner in San Diego on July 23rd, first-come, first-served, in connection with the SDCC Shrine a “causeplay” charity event organized by Denter Chris Morrow.

It’s a tradition for members of the Dent community to converge in July for San Diego for Comic-Con, but sadly, for the second year now, the in-person event is on hold.

The pandemic has not dissuaded Denter Chris Morrow. In 2020 she launched a gathering in San Diego called the “San Diego Causeplayer Community Shrine” (SDCC Shrine) which she organized as a way for thousands of fans to continue connecting over their shared love of the convention.

The SDCC Shrine invites all to dress up in cosplay, and give blood to the San Diego Blood Bank. As a reward, Funko Pop collectables and other goodies are provided to blood donors.

Integral to this event are many central figures in the “causeplay” world — people like Christopher Canole who cosplays as “Dude Vader” every weekend for charity.

This year, Dent is supporting the gathering by helping fund rewards for those who give blood. Plus, we’ll host a dinner on July 23, where 2021 Dent conference registered attendees can meet and mingle with Chris and we can drink a toast to some of the most prominent, generous, and creative causeplayers.

Slots at the dinner are going fast: only three spots remain as of this writing. If you are registered for the 2021 Dent Conference email kim AT dentthefuture dot com to RSVP.

Dr. Brian Brown on Breakthrough Applications of mRNA Technology

June 1, 2021 by Steve Broback

Join us on Friday, June 4, 2021 as Dr. Brian Brown, one of the leading scientists in the field of mRNA-induced immunity examines the implications and realities of this exciting new scientific domain. RSVP here.

Just 15 months ago, most people had never heard of Messenger RNA (mRNA). Today 132 million Americans are fully vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 thanks to breakthrough applications of mRNA technology. After more than 25 years of research, scientists now say we are on the verge of the most dramatic change to vaccine creation since cow viruses were first used two centuries ago.

Immunologist and molecular biologist Dr. Brian Brown has spent over 20 years working at the intersection of gene therapy and immunity, including with the leaders who invented the adenoviral vector that’s become the backbone of the J&J and Astrazeneca vaccines.

On Friday June 4, Dr. Brown will present a Dent @ Home talk where he will discuss how mRNA technology emerged as the leading basis for COVID and other new vaccines, and he will explore the ways other next generation technologies are being developed to ‘hack’ the immune system to treat a broad range of diseases.

Dr. Brown’s research career spans immune oncology, molecular immunology, microRNA biology, and genetic engineering. His training began with doctoral studies in Canada where he worked to establish ways to overcome the immune response hindering gene therapy. He subsequently did his postdoctoral studies in Italy where he helped develop a new platform for controlling gene expression, which has led to improvements in experimental treatments for genetic disease, cancer, and viral infection. Dr. Brown’s lab is now working to identify the factors that control immunity and tolerance, and translate these findings into strategies that can be used to turn the immune system against cancer or viruses.

He is the Associate Director of the Precision Immunology Institute (PrIISM), acting Director of the Icahn Genomics Institute, and a Professor of Genetics and Genomic Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

In Pursuit of a Life Worth Living

April 26, 2021 by Steve Broback

Join us on Friday, April 30, as Dr. Matthew Croasmun of Yale University examines what “making a dent” might truly mean. RSVP here.

One of the most popular courses at Yale University is HUMS 411, “Life Worth Living.” Taught by Dr. Matthew Croasmun, the class outlines the values of different traditions and ideologies through foundational texts and guest lecturers. The goal is for students to develop skills in the life-long process of reflecting on, and discerning, the good life.

Dr. Croasmun says“What we’re trying to do is offer students an opportunity to think critically about the most important question of their lives across important and enduring lines of difference. That can only be good for them as individuals and as global citizens.”

As we all ponder what making a “dent in the universe” really means — and how we will achieve that end, it behooves all of us to deeply consider the fundamental question of what our pursuits will mean in the long run.

Dr. Croasmun will be joining us onstage at the 2021 Dent Conference in Santa Fe, NM to talk about how he equips students, educators, and the public for the lifelong process of discerning, articulating, and pursuing the good life by engaging the world’s philosophical and religious traditions.

Members and followers of the Dent community can catch a pre-conference interview on Zoom with Dr. Croasmun on Friday April 30, 2021 by registering here.

Matt Croasmun is Associate Research Scholar and Director of the Life Worth Living Program at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture and Lecturer of Divinity & Humanities at Yale University. He is the author of The Emergence of Sin: the Cosmic Tyrant in Romans (2017) and For the Life of the World: Theology that Makes a Difference (2019).