This is a retrospective on Catalyst, a one-day collaborative biosecurity summit that was held in February 2020 in the San Francisco Bay Area, written by the organizers^[1] for anyone who might run a similar event in the future.

tl;dr

It is possible for a small group of volunteers to run a high-quality conference without making it any of their full-time jobs, but give yourself 8 to 10 months to bring an event of this scale from concept to execution. (See: Timeline.)
Define the outcomes you want from your event early on. This will shape so many decisions, from contacting advisors to choosing a venue. Check out Gather for a good step-by-step guide. That said, measuring outcomes is really hard!
There is an unmet need for non-hierarchical and connection-focused conferences. We prioritized discussion, shared problem-solving, and networking between participants, and, from the feedback we received, we think these efforts contributed to more dynamic conversations and a stronger sense of community. (See: How did the event go? and Programming and Event Structure).
Experienced advisors are great. You don’t need a lot of their time to get huge benefits; a few 1-hour meetings and permission to put their names on the website was enough (see: Getting help and mentorship).
If you have funding for the conference you should try to understand the tax implications before starting to spend money. This worked out fine for us, but could easily not have (see: Budget).
Leave slack in your budget, timeline, and day-of program. We made incorrect predictions about how long things would take (especially booking speakers and finding a venue) and about how much things would cost (especially catering). (See: Timeline and Expected vs Actual Budget, which we hope will help future organizers to make better predictions).

How did the event go?

We ran Catalyst because we wanted to create a venue for discussing biosecurity in the SF Bay Area. The theme of the summit was that biotechnology is advancing quickly, many different futures seem possible, and that we must thoughtfully collaborate in order to ensure that we get a positive future.

Two photographs from Catalyst. The first is of a whiteboard with the words "Draw Your Connections" at the top. Instant photos of people are on the board, and lines are drawn between them and various words on the board (e.g. "synthetic biology"). The second photo is a group photo of all the attendees standing together.

Catalyst was attended by about 100 people representing various levels of engagement with biosecurity (from undergrads to experienced biosecurity professionals) across several different communities (effective altruists, biohackers, academics, industrial biotechnolo...

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