The first day of Supernova will include a user-generated “unconference” – an open, participatory series of sessions loosely based on the conference themes. In honor of this year’s theme of Perestroika, we invite attendees to lead discussions around rebuilding some aspect of our ever-changing digital world.  Some of the sessions will be on technology policy topics related to the opening panels, but the unconference is not limited to those areas.

Bring your ideas!  A session can start with an introductory talk or presentation, or it can be an open roundtable.  We’ll have projectors and Internet access in all the rooms if you need them.

We will provide an open schedule board with classrooms and time slots. If you’d like to present, simply grab an index card and a marker and write the name of your session and post it to the board. Sessions need not be limited to one leader; consider grabbing some of your peers for a panel discussion or engaging your audience in a group conversation.

To get the ball rolling, we will have a few pre-populated sessions:

• Crowdsourcing to Improve Policy – Anil Dash & Gina Trapani
• The Human Side of Tech – from Conscious Computing to Tummeling – Deborah Schultz, Heather Gold, and Kevin Marks
• Broadband is the Problem, Not the Solution – Bob Frankston
• The State of Now – Jeff Pulver
• Broadband Adoption Initiatives: An Update on Stimulus Funding – Emy Tseng
• Ask the FCC -  John Horrigan, Tom Spavins, Don Stockdale, Irene Wu
• I Had No Idea This Was Happening in My Own Backyard – Alex Hillman

Attendees are not required to present, but encouraged to be active participants in their sessions.  We support the Law of Two Feet, defined by unconference pioneer Harrison Owen: If at any time you find yourself in any situation where you are neither learning nor contributing: use your two feet and go someplace else.

Our unconference is inspired by several successful examples, including BarCamp. BarCamps happen all over the world, and can be started simply by announcing on the BarCamp Wiki. They initially focused on open source technologies, web apps, and programming languages, but in recent years, *Camps have been created in every flavor: PodCamp, TransitCamp, HealthCamp, etc.

For more information, check out BarCamp and Open Space Technology on Wikipedia.