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Dent Returns to San Diego Comic Con

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Following another amazing experience last year at San Diego Comic-Con highlighted by real-life Iron Man suit inventor Richard Browning and his incredible demo flight, Dent returns to San Diego this July with two inspiring panels, a one-of-a-kind reception, and a cadre of expert speakers from the MIT Media Lab, NASA, Lockheed Martin Space and more.

 

Our special guest speaker for 2018 is astronaut (and Dent Advisory Board member) Cady Coleman. Cady is a veteran of two Space Shuttle missions, and has logged 159 days in space aboard the International Space Station.

 

Our two panels: Creating the Future at the MIT Media Lab and Moonbase & Beyond center around highlighting exciting new technologies and the industry experts behind the scenes making them possible.

On Thursday, July 19 Join us for:

Creating the Future at the MIT Media Lab: How Comics Inspire Students Work (and Vice Versa)

MIT and their Media Lab are prominent fixtures in the Marvel Universe. Tony Stark, Otto Octavius, Reed Richards, Riri Williams, and Sue Storm are all MIT alums. While MIT has inspired Marvel, the reverse is even more the case. Many of the real world students, faculty, and alumni of the school are inventing amazing technologies, (not to mention creative media) based on what they’ve seen from comic book characters on screen and in print. Panelists Dr. Katy Croff Bell (director of the Media Lab Open Ocean initiative), Dr. Danielle Wood (MIT Media Lab director, Space Enabled group), Alexis Hope (Creative Director, TEN FWD; MIT Media Lab alum) Selam Gano (MIT Media Lab undergraduate researcher) and moderator Cady Coleman (retired NASA astronaut) will profile the cutting-edge technologies and storytelling coming out of this Cambridge MA think-tank.

 

On Friday, July 20 don’t miss:

Moonbase and Beyond: The New Push to Deep Space

Since SDCC 2017, a new era of discovery has emerged. Budget priorities have dramatically changed and resources for space exploration have surged. This means the most powerful rocket ever launched (the SLS) is now on track to deliver a 25 metric ton payload (including humans) to the moon. The moon will serve as a stepping stone toward eventual missions to Mars and deeper into the solar system. Panelists Cady Coleman (retired NASA astronaut), Bill Pratt (Advanced Human Spaceflight Systems, Lockheed Martin Space) and Marshall Smith (director cross-program systems integration/exploration systems at NASA), along with moderator Steve Broback (cofounder, Dent the Future) will discuss the goals, the timing, and the logistical needs for this exciting new age of exploration.

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Following the Thursday panel, join us at Stone Brewing Tap Room for a post-session reception and technology demo sponsored by Lockheed Martin Space on Thursday 7/19 starting at 5:00pm PT. At this gathering Dent community members, press and invited guests will have the ability to meet and mingle with our panelists and experience demos of some of the exciting new technology our speakers are working on.

Click here for more information and to register for your ticket to the speaker reception.

We’re looking forward to another amazing year SDCC, and hope to see you there!

Ignite Talks at Dent 2018

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For the past four years, we’ve hosted unconference talks on the afternoon of the last day at Dent. This year, we’re going to be trying something new to bring great ideas and stories from the audience up to the stage: Ignite talks.

Ignite is a great, five-minute format started in Seattle more than a decade ago. Each talk has a 20-slide powerpoint deck that auto-advances every 15 seconds. The tagline for the format: Enlighten us, but make it quick!

Here are the Ignite Talk presenters (and titles) of the talks we’ll enjoy at Dent 2018:

  • Wendy Bird – Dignity: A Hand Up vs A Hand Out
  • Cheryl Contee – How to Make Friends and Win The Internet!
  • Tyler Suard – 10 Years of Self-improvement in 5 Minutes
  • Elizabeth Grigg – How to use an Ideas Folder to Reinvent Yourself, Despite What Ira Glass and Malcolm Gladwell Have To Say About It
  • Hillary Preston – How Government Procurement Is Actually Awesome (Not Boring)
  • Sumanth Channabasappa – Super Sprints… 0 – 1 in three days!
  • David Jones – The Changing World of Work in 5 Minutes (or less)
  • Bruce Caron – Hunter-gatherers Have a Lot to Teach Rocket Scientists
  • Kristy Sammis – Ultimate Business Hack: Run It Like A Girl

The Ignite talks will be held in two batches, one on Monday and one on Tuesday. We’re very excited for them!

What’s The Wine Bus Schedule for Dent 2018?

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At Dent each year we have a tradition of hosting a “wine bus” trip between the airport and the conference.

The now famous Wine Bus to and from Dent will be running between San Francisco and Napa Valley for Dent 2018. Once we’re in Yountville, a car is an inconvenience. The town can be crossed on foot in less than 15 minutes, and our sessions venue is nestled comfortably between four or five different boutique hotels.

The Wine Busses will depart from both the Oakland and San Francisco airports on Saturday, February 3rd at 2pm, and return on Wednesday, February 7th by 11am. Here’s the breakdown:

The wine bus trip (and wine!) is included in your Dent registration fee.

OAK to Yountville & SFO to Yountville
Saturday, February 3rd
Departing each airport at 2pm

Yountville to SFO & OAK
Wednesday, February 7th
Arriving at each airport by 11am.

Become A Sponsor

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Dent events and experiences are for people and brands acting with purpose and passion to make a difference.

Does your brand help people do something amazing?

Does your brand help fuel people’s passion and purpose?

Does your brand help people make a difference?

Dent is different, and so is your brand. Your brand might be consumer or B2B, automotive or apparel, food or drink, services or tech. No matter what your focus, if you’re enabling people to make a difference and connect with a greater purpose, you’re in the right place.

Dent attendees are influencers on the cutting edge of change, building something bigger than themselves. Dent partners enable that effort, reaching this exclusive group of influential buyers in unique ways. Dent experiences immerse attendees in your brand’s mission, products and story.

Whether you choose to sponsor a Dent:Dinner, an experience or meal at a Dent conference, or choose a bespoke partnership, we’ll help you influence the influencers and achieve your goals. Together, we’ll make a dent in the universe.

>> Learn More

Your sponsorship will be custom-tailored to match your goals and your brand messages. Most packages include promotional considerations, on-site presence, and product experience opportunities. Sample sponsorships include:

“Dine-a-round” sponsorships, where your sponsorship includes acting as sponsor host for a select group of attendees at an evening dinner event, as well as all “standard” event sponsorship benefits

“Artist in Residence” sponsorships, where your brand associates itself with the creative arts, sponsoring on-site artists during Dent events, as well as all “standard” event sponsorship benefits

Hospitality sponsorships might include breaks, breakfasts, lunches, charging stations, and the like, as well as all “standard” event sponsorship benefits

Bespoke sponsorships to match your marketing goals, from simple product placements to immersive experiences

>> Learn More

Dent at San Diego Comic-Con 2017

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Want an invite to our reception featuring Richard Browning? Do not comment here, instead Go here…

We are returning to San Diego Comic-Con with another set of panels, plus a reception on July 20, where we will be featuring an appearance by exosuit inventor “Iron Man” Richard Browning. Below are the panels currently slated for the #SDCC2017 stage. To be emailed with schedule updates, submit your info here.

Our SDCC panels have now gone live on the Comic-Con site!

The State of Iron Man Tech
Thursday July 20, 2017 2:00pm – 3:00pm
Room 32AB
Tony Stark and the technologies he creates are a part of modern lexicon. Mainstream publications like The Atlantic run articles like “Everyone Wants Elon Musk to Be Tony Stark,” and Musk himself admits that some of his inventions are modeled after Stark creations. While Musk has yet to build a flying exosuit or a J.A.R.V.I.S.-style assistant, others have. Some of these inventors will join moderator Steve Broback (Dent the Future, LLC) to discuss their innovations — ones that could have come straight out of Stark Industries. Panelists include inventor and TED speaker Richard Browning (founder of Gravity.co), who actually flies via his jet engine-powered suit, along with Chris Gerty (informatics subsystem team lead, NASA – Johnson Space Center), Adam Draper (founder & managing director, Boost VC), and Zoë Bell (stunt woman and actress).

The Lazarus Pit Gets Real
Friday July 21, 2017 4:00pm – 5:00pm
Room 28DE
The Marvel and DC (and other) universes universally feature age-inhibiting “renewal elixirs” in their storylines. Nick Fury, Black Canary, and Batman are among the scores of characters who have reversed or delayed the aging process. Thanks to rejuvenation biotechnologies being developed by people like Bill Maris (founder, Section 32) and physician Joon Yun (president of Palo Alto Investors), the Lazarus Pit, Vigoral, Super-Soldier Serum, Extremis serum, Infinity Formula, and Pym Particles are now no longer fantasy concepts. Remarkable progress has been made in extending the life spans of animals and, soon, humans. This panel will cover the latest in anti-aging and cognitive enhancements.

The Evolutionary Argument for Purpose Driven Companies

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In Yuval Noah Harari’s hit book Sapiens, he explains the far-reaching implications of our ability, as Homo Sapiens, to communicate about imaginary things:

Any large-scale human cooperation — whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city or an archaic tribe — is rooted in common myths that exist only in people’s collective imagination. Churches are rooted in common religious myths. Two Catholics who have never met can nevertheless go together on crusade or pool funds to build a hospital because they both believe that God was incarnated in human flesh and allowed Himself to be crucified to redeem our sins…Two lawyers who have never met can nevertheless combine efforts to defend a complete stranger because they both believe in the existence of laws, justice, human rights — and the money paid out in fees.

This shift, this ability to think in imaginary terms, is called the Cognitive Revolution (it was then followed by the Agricultural Revolution). This big step — imagination — is what took our species beyond tool-making and onto the top of the food chain; and in fact the world we construct with common fiction is perhaps stronger in some ways than the earth on which we walk:

Ever since the Cognitive Revolution, Sapiens have thus been living in a dual reality. On the one hand, the objective reality of rivers, trees and lions; and on the other hand, the imagined reality of gods, nations and corporations. As time went by, the imagined reality became ever more powerful, so that today the very survival of rivers, trees and lions depends on the grace of imagined entities such as the United States and Google.

The conclusion that human “groupishness” and our ability to put the needs of a group ahead of our own in service of a shared imagined reality, is common among various branches of psychology. Jonathan Haidt, in his book The Righteous Mind, references a series of studies on different stand-alone communes or cooperative communities, and found that those based on religious beliefs were far more successful than those without. The power of a controlling imagined reality is to allow people to work together.

Recently, our companies have grown in size and complexity. More recently still, digital communication has made it possible for people to feel they are part of a 200,000 person company, instead of a 200-person silo somewhere within a larger and somewhat anonymous organization.

To make matters worse (for humans), we have begun to shift between jobs and even careers at a very rapid pace. For my contemporaries, spending more than five years at a company that you didn’t create is odd and warrants some kind of explanation.

As a result, we are left with less natural trust within our companies and teams. We have begun to rely again on imagined realities instead of the more basic human tools of relationships and gossip. The motivational power of purpose for company employees is likely tied to this adaptive and psychological trick of creating trust and coordination within large groups of strangers through a shared story.