Open Access Week 2014

What do brain machine interfaces and Open Science have in common?

They are two examples of concepts that I never thought I would get to see materialised in my lifetime. I was wrong.

I had heard of the idea of Open Access as Public Library of Science was about to launch (or was in its early infancy) . It was about that time that I moved to New Zealand and was not able to go to conferences as frequently as I did in the USA, and couldn’t afford having an internet connection at home. Email communication (especially when limited to work hours) does not promote the same kind of chitter-chatter you might have as you wait in cue for your coffee – and so my work moved along, somewhat oblivious to what was going to become a big focus for me later on: Open Science.

About 6 years ofter moving to New Zealand things changed. Over a coffee with Nat Torkington, I became aware of some examples of people working in science embracing a  more open attitude. This conversation had a big impact on me.  Someone whom I never met before described me a whole different way of doing science. [...]