“Mars’ Society” Conference, 2024

Disclaimer:
Everything below is a mix of what I observed and heard during the event. The goal isn’t to pinpoint "who exactly said what," but to share (usually) an outsider's view and overall perspective on these industries. I’m not here to act as a definitive firsthand source—readers should do their own research. I hope this inspires you to attend events, explore new industries, and hear what leaders are presenting. These notes combine my observations with thoughts on how things could run smoother and how ideas connect (IMO). I’m not an expert, you know? Just hanging out in the room with them. Enjoy!

Topics Covered: Space Technology & Medicine, Government Spending, Education, World Peace

Conference Overall Ratings: Venue (4/5) - Food (2/5) - Speaker Content (5/5) - Networking Opportunity (4/5) - Likeliness to Return (4/5)

Initial Conference Overview: This event felt, like, surreal (out of this world, dare I say!) Stumbling into this event was a bit serendipitous. It stated as a casual outing to aMars-themed social at the Natural History Museum and expanded into a full two and a half days of mind-blowing learning and inspiration. Who knew there is so much innovation and intention planned behind learning more and making progress for humanity. Their general thesis was so fantastic: let’s work on preserving and building, using our infinite resource around us. An abundance mindset.

Bullet Point Notes from Conference :

• (Note: These reflections are from my memory a few weeks later, as I wasn’t as focused on note-taking at the time)

  I arrive late to a "Mars" event... and they’re out of water! hahah.  Be prepared, people! hahah. (But don't worry, there ended up being plenty 😁 )

  I liked this group's events/mission a lot: let's work together as a humanity... to preserve humanity. A global “path to peace” by working together... though everyone & different countries may have EXTREMLY different views, it's worth it to see if we can survive and thrive using what's around us.

  Another thing I like about the tone/perspective. "There is no point killing each other over provinces when, together, we can create planets".

  We don’t need to be creating these wars, insisting that there are such limited precious resources on Earth - all while ignoring options around us that we can probably solve with time + technology.

  Get smarter with money + resources... and keep innovating. For me, I think it’s really worthwhile to try. I like this shared mission that people from all backgrounds, all countries, problem solve and work together on the future.

  Plus, they mentions that if we can learn to adapt well on Mars, then maybe people in charge will take time to relook at how we're treating Earth, too... possibly get a lot smarter/efficient with our systems here, too? On an atmosphere we already understand well!! haha. 😏

• Some of the things I learned and was impressed by include:

  - It takes a LOT of work to get money for space reserach. But some guys were finally able to and they got more research + data collected on Pluto! For the first time. Turns out there are a number of crazy similarities between Pluto and Mars! Even that Pluto may have recently had water/may have signs of lifeee! That's pretty crazy. In that case, I think definitely Pluto has frozen fish on it hahaha. Tiny fish or plankton. 😂😁🐠

  - With osteoporosis, you lose 1% every year. In space you lose 1% every month! Also different types of bones are preserved in different ways, so you have to make choices too!

  - You can get the most up to date info on the topography/geography of Mars (and some asteroids)... then determine/test/simulate which locations will have the highest likelihood of greenhouses thriving in these locations. They found 15 spots on one, and then were able to narrow it down to the first place to build with a high chance of success!

Conference “Overall Rating” Further Elaboration:

• VENUE - 4/5

  • OPPORTUNITES FOR IMPROVEMENT: I was stuck using the elevator more often than not because the stairwells were very un-instinctual at this university building and I got lost more often than I was proud of 😂. Probably the students have it figured out, but it’s hard to master in a day. The room sizes were very good and practical for the size of this event. Though, it seems they could have forgotten the main hall for breakout sessions (used that time to clean up or let people mingle with vendors), then use smaller rooms for each speaker. The main hall never seemed to fill up for speakers (minus the keynotes, of course) which may give the speaker a feeling like the room is empty. Also, when people were returning from other speeches, it sometimes cut-off the speaker in the main hall from getting to answer Q&A and experience a proper goodbye. But overall, I loved how everything was easy enough to find, in the same building, well lit, reasonable temperatures, and good audio/visual.

• FOOD - 2/5

  • OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT: Almost every meal had a mix of healthy and just simply delicious options. I was amazed by how good the breakfast and dinner were… I ate a lot at those meals. The food at lunch had too much sauce though (but it was good to take. little break)… and then salsa used at the snack break was a little questionable. But, overall, I was extremely happy and well fed. 😂. (Seriously, I’m so full from yesterday and all the amazing food I enjoyed. Hahaha. My body literally needed a day to regroup.)

• SPEAKER CONTENT - 5/5

  • ALLOW ME TO ELABORATE: There was so much useful information to learn at this event. Even for someone like me, with hardly any experience in this industry at all. I walked away with so much new understanding and delight for digital marketing.

• NETWORKING OPPORTUNITIES - 5/5

  • ALLOW ME TO ELABORATE: From the “Welcome Party” to the frequent breaks, to the lengthy meals, to the “Goodbye Mixer”… socializing was prioritized and there were lots of ways to meet others at this event. (TBH I didn’t meet many people. I spent so much of my energy taking notes! Usually event topics aren’t quite this useful & interesting. But this one, each speaker kept me interested for the most part, so I had to preserve my energy) On top of that, the host kept things fast-paced, timely, upbeat, and funny. He had a lot of jokes he threw out nonstop. It set the tone to keep others in a good mood too, happy to be there. I did hear some coworkers at lunch mention to each other how these speeches were way more in-depth than they’re used to/understood… It was great people had a chance to build new relationship, spending time reflecting on what they’d just learned (and I bet they learned even more than they realized!)

• LIKELINESS TO RETURN - 5/5

  • ALLOW ME TO ELABORATE: This was a fun event that taught me a lot about niche topics like (SEO, Website Content Development, Working with Crawlers to get Indexed) and I saw even more of what it takes to host a great event. I would definitely return to this conference in the future.

This was a whirlwind of inspiration and knowledge. I loved the tones of cooperation and thriving into the future. Learning to take better care of Earth and our resources, too.

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Until next time, I wish you the motivation and success to search for opportunities around your area. Search and explore: Who is out there giving talks? There are new things happening all of the time

Find relatable or interesting topics you like and check them out! Maybe even something hosted at a cool venue, if there’s no other reason to go. Let’s see what you can learn and discover not too far from home. 😊