Ariel Waldman - Hacker Culture

Saying during her IdeaFestival presentation that she starting out as designer, Ariel Waldman has since made name for herself as an advocate for space exploration and citizen science, and points out that space exploration now needs people from fashion design to geologists. She is also a driving force behind Science Hack Day, which gives participants 48 consecutive hours to prototype all manner of objects, some of which, like "particle wind chimes" and a worn mask that mimics synesthesia, she discussed at IdeaFestival 2013. "It's just a way," she says, of getting people to play with things and to create. Fun fact from her 2013 presentation: the average age of NASA employees during the Apollo era was 27, and that relative youth contributed to what she called an early "hacker culture" that put explorers on the moon. The average age now? It's closer to 47.