Photo of STARLAB Building, and STARLAB Manifesto, Brussels, Belgium, Europe.
(Notes and STARLAB Manifesto below photo)
NOTES :
From early November 2000, STARLAB has been housed in the new impressive building above. The building has an impressive history. As far as I know it served to treat the Belgian soldiers gassed at Ypres in the 1st World War, where the Germans used gas for the first time. Its been a tuberculosis sanitarium, a mental health hospital, and recently an embassy.
It contains about 100 people, 70 researchers from about 30 different countries, doing a mix of things such as blue sky research (e.g. nanotech, quantum computing, brain building, time travel, faster than light travel, virus traps, robot consciousness etc); consortia (e.g. I-wear (clothing with embedded computers), etc); and spinoffs (about a dozen already or about to go). For details, see STARLAB's Manifesto below these notes.
The lab is a private company at the time of writing (Jan 2001) but will probably IPO some time in 2001, depending on the state of the world market.
If you want to know more about this extraordinary place, have a look at its website at http://www.starlab.org
There are about 10 live-in apartments in the building. I have the nicest one, situated on the ground floor at the very left. I have 3+ people in my brain building team at Starlab. Our rooms are on the 4th level (basement, ground floor, 1st floor, 2nd floor) at the very right corner of the building. Its nice being able to walk 70 meters to work and keep working until 3am if the mood calls me. Its wonderful to feel I have my own private mansion and my own private forest to stroll around in.
STARLAB has built bookcases for me that ascend to the 5 meter ceiling in my living room to accomodate half of the 6000 books in my private library. Im seriously thinking of buying the life-size Fat Man bomb prop used in the first Discovery Channel documentary (of 3 in 2000) on my work and ideas made in June 2000. I want to hang it from the ceiling surrounded by the books. It will serve as a symbol for me of the awful responsibility that scientists have towards society. In my case the bomb will represent the artilect in all its terrible ambiguity. From the Terran viewpoint it is gigadeath hanging over me, waiting to happen. From the Cosmist viewpoint, it is heavenly, godlike, with me looking up. It will also be a great conversation piece, both for my friends and visitors, and also for the journalists. If I do it, I will have to scan in a photo about here. It should look spectacular.
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STARLAB's MANIFESTO
(taken verbatim from Starlab's business flier (scanned version here p1 p2 p3))
STARLAB, Deep Future
STARLAB, a place where 100 years means nothing.
http://www.starlab.org
WHAT IS STARLAB?
Imagine that close to a hundred top scientists, each of them leaders in their respective fields, coming from 36 countries are one day repatriated, with their families, to a laboratory in Europe to work on the most cutting-edge projects that mankind can think of.
Imagine that all of them have the ambition to make this lab the most advanced, avant-garde laboratory in the world concentrating not on applied research and short term projects, but on long term issues and Deep Future.
Imagine that these people have at their disposal state-of-the-art equipment to build the things they are passionate about ranging from the atomic level to the macroscopic levels.
Now you are very close to what Starlab is.
http://www.starlab.org
Starlab DF-1, Brussels
Rue Engelandstraat 555, B-1180, Brussels, Belgium
Tel. +32-2-740-0740, Fax. +32-2-742-9654
Starlab DF-2, Barcelona
Edifici de l'Obervatori Fabra, Muntanya del Tibidabo
Cami de l'Obervatori s/n, 08035 Barcelona, Spain
tel. +34-679-49 57 78
multicultural
fast from idea to patent to market
multidisciplinary
1. BLUE SKY RESEARCH.
SEARCHING FOR QUESTIONS
Starlab's horizonless cutting-edge research dismantles the boundaries between scientific fields and invites cross-fertilization, constantly challenging old thoughts and looking for new ones. This long-term research provides the breeding ground for innovation.
Some blue-sky research projects include brainbuilding, genetic algorithms, protein folding, nanotechnology, time travel, neurobotics, artificial intelligence, quantum computation, ...
2. CONSORTIA. SCOUTING FOR NEW ANSWERS, SETTING NEW STANDARDS.
Forward-thinking players on the world business stage commit to a 5 year research project with Starlab's experts to guide the exploration of a chosen rich idea, opening windows to long-term future enterprises.
i-Wear is Starlab's first consortium. I-Wear focuses on intelligent clothing, putting new technologies into clothing to create a "second skin". This "second skin" monitors your body functions and at the same time is in contact with the environment. The current i-Wear client list includes companies like : Adidas, Levi Strauss Europe, Bekintex, AT&T, Recticel, Samsonite, Energizer, SCA Hygiene, Vasco, Seiko Epson, Philips, France Telecom, Orange, Courreges, X Planation, Siemens and W.L.Gore & Associates.
A second consortium is being launched:
Media Impossible.
Based upon current and future scientific and technological changes, Media Impossible will redefine the nature of media in the age of nanotechnology. This consortium will explore new visions on multimedia: what are future media-businesses? How will people experience information in the future?
http://www.mediaimpossible.com
A third consortium is in preparation. Nanomanufacturing, which will focus on the future of manufacturing in the nanotechnology age.
3. SPIN-OFFS. GREENHOUSES FOR GROWTH
Once an idea has been shown to have market potential we try to bring about a swift and fruitful implementation of it by making sure it gets the best minds, the best partners, and the best money ... fast. The following spin-offs are already part of Starlab's spin-off portfolio:
BioProcessors (USA)
Introduces a miniaturized bioreactor to automate and facilitate the drug discovery and development process for both the biotech and pharmaceutical world. The company's HQ is located in San Francisco, CA, USA.
DescriptOmatic (B)
DescriptOmatic is the first MPEG-7 based software product for indexing manipulating, retrieving and visualizing audiovisual materials. The company's HQ is located in Brussels, Belgium
http://www.descriptomatic.com
Infogenomix (B)
Infogenomix develops software tools for the identification of proteins. The company's HQ is located in Ghent, Belgium.
Starseeders (B):
Starseeders is a 100% Starlab subsidiary that shelters the business development team of Starlab. This team focuses on identifying and launching ideas that come out from Starlab's research work. The company's HQ is located in Brussels, Belgium.
4. THINK TANK. FORUM OF EXPERTS
Our growing international network allows us to group together the key players and world class thinkers on a specific subject serving Institutions and Governments. In a think tank we bring together a multidisciplinary group of Starlab scientists that work on a client's problem for a predefined period.
5. LICENCES. MINING IPR.
This part of the business will become fully operational in the near future. The idea is to sell technology licences to industrial partners in return for a licence fee on gross sales.