Ernesto Ramirez

May 13, 2015

One June 18-20 we will be hosting our seventh Quantified Self Conference. The 2015 QS Conference and Exposition is going to be unprecedented gathering of users and makers of self-tracking tools. Thanks to the remarkable creativity and generosity of people coming from around the world to share their knowledge, we’re going to explore a remarkable range of ideas and tools from the world of the Quantified Self. We build our program entirely from the proposals submitted by attendees, and we’ve been astounded by the amazing self-tracking projects, personal stories, discussion topics, and companies that have stepped forward to contribute.

Today we’re publishing our first program list for the 2015 QS Conference and Exposition. Already we have over 90 different sessions on our program; and there are more to come! We are grateful to each and every one of the individuals who are taking the the time to help shape and expand the QS community through their experiences and insights.

Below are just a few previews. For much more, check out our full list of the initial confirmed program sessions.

(And, of course: Register now!)

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Show&Tell Talks

THREE YEARS OF LOGGING MY INBOX COUNT
Mark Wilson
The number of emails in my inbox correlates very well with my stress level. After passively tracking this number for three years, I explore what this and other data says about how I’ve controlled (and been controlled by) this stream of angst.

SEX-TRACKING THE MICROBIOME
Francois-Joseph Lapointe
My wife and I have tracked our microbiomes in an attempt to assess the complex dynamics of bacterial communities living in two bodies in close contact. We sampled oral, anal, urethral and vaginal microbiomes to see what changes occurred.

DREAMING NUMBERS
Damien Catani
In 1998 I started logging dreams in an effort to reconstruct my life after an intense teenage crisis. 17 years and 5,782 dreams later, I’ll share the surprising findings made during this quest to rationalize irrationality.

BUILDING MYSELF BACK UP: TRACKING AND HABIT
FORMATION POST-CONCUSSION
Maggie Delano
I was diagnosed with Post-Concussion Syndrome last September and had to give my brain a break from cognitively stimulating activities. I’ll discuss how I tracked my progress toward recovery.

Breakouts

WHAT IS HIDING IN THE PRIVACY POLICY OF YOUR
QS TOOL?
Alexander Senemar
We’ve developed a standardized rating system in which we rate the privacy policy and terms of service of Quantified Self services. We’ll use our results to open a general discussion of the mostly unread contract terms governing data access and privacy.

DISASTERS IN QS – FAILURES AND LESSONS
LEARNED
Jakob Eg Larsen, Edison Thomaz
The experimental nature of self-tracking means that failures are inevitable. We will discuss challenges in self-tracking, experiences from self-tracking that took a different direction than anticipated, and the lessons learned.

HACKING OUR MICROBIOME
Alexandra Carmichael, Richard Sprague
Today it’s possible to get data on the microbes that live in our gut using personal genomics. We’ll lead a breakout workshop on understanding and hacking our microbiome.

Lunchtime Ignite Talks

TRACKING BABY MILESTONES: SURPRISING RESULTS OF BRINGING DATA TO PARENTING
Morgan Friedman
By tracking and comparing baby milestones, we can find interesting and important patterns and correlations. Applying quantified self principles to babies is letting us create a movement to use data we collect to learn how to help kids grow healthy. We’ll discuss data, patterns, and surprising parenting advice we’ve learned.

A QUEST FOR HIGH FIDELITY ACTIVITY TRACKING
Jamie Williams
Jamie will show us how he is building tools to capture a timeline of his daily activities and explore his habits through data visualization

Office Hours

THE BRAIN STIMULATOR
JD Leadam
We create Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation devices for consumers. These devices are able to dramatically influence changes in cortical excitability in the areas of the brain that are targeted. We’ve found numerous customers use our products after quantifying their life and determining what they want to improve on.

BEEMINDER
Bethany Soule, Danny Reeves
Beeminder is Quantified Self plus commitment contracts. It graphs your progress on a Yellow Brick Road to your goal and if you go off track, it charges you!

WHATIFY
Cara Mae Cirignano
We are a web-based platform for networked randomized experiments. Our goal is to bring the power of randomized experiments to a wider audience.

FITABASE
Aaron Coleman
My company helps researchers use Fitbit data to make discoveries in public health and behavioral science. Stop by and I’ll show you how.