Danny Hillis is an inventor, scientist, engineer, entrepreneur, and author. His concept for a 10,000-year Clock was the founding idea for The Long Now Foundation. As co-founder he shaped the original direction of the organization, found funders for each iteration of the Clock, designed and built the Clocks, and continues to shape and build the whole enterprise. He is co-founder and co-chair of Applied Minds.

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Danny Hillis is the next speaker in the Seminars About Long-term Thinking series, Friday, September 10, 7pm, at the Fort Mason Conference Center in San Francisco. His topic is "Progress on the 10,000-year Clock."

“How’s the Clock coming?” Everyone connected with The Long Now Foundation or with Danny Hillis hears that question all the time.

“Progress on the 10,000-Year Clock,” Danny Hillis — Friday, September 10, 7pm, Fort Mason Conference Center, San Francisco. Doors open for coffee and books at 7pm; lecture is promptly at 8pm. You may want to come early to be sure of a seat. Admission is free (donation of $10 very welcome, not required).

Planned as an art/engineering work of heroic scale inside a Nevada mountain, the 10K Clock is meant to embody and inspire long-term thinking. The first working prototype was completed in 2000 and now ticks sedately away (one tick per minute) in London at the Science Museum (the Queen came to the opening). The second working prototype is nearing completion. Meanwhile the designated mountain— Mt. Washington, 11,600 feet high in eastern Nevada— is being explored in depth. If all goes well, construction of the Mountain Clock could begin soon.

Co-founder and co-chair of The Long Now Foundation, Danny Hillis is an inventor, scientist, author, and engineer. He pioneered the concept of parallel computers that is now the basis for most supercomputers, as well as the RAID disk array technology used to store large databases. He is co-chair and chief technology officer at Applied Minds. Before that he was a vice president and Fellow at Disney. Before that he co-founded Thinking Machines, which built the first massively parallel supercomputers. (Full bio here. )