NERD NITE OKI IS BAAACK!!!
 
After a fairly long COVID hiatus, we brought Nerd Nite Oki back, and with a bang!
 
This year (2022), June 10th and once again in collaboration with our incredible hosts, Esparza’s Tacos and Coffee. Even more awesome; in recognition of Pride Month, we teamed up with the excellent members of the OIST LGBTQ+ Allies group to present this Nerd Nite as part of their 2022 Pride Month calendar and celebrations!!!
 
As part of our COVID considerations we now limiting the number of attendees to Nerd Nite Okinawa. The event was free, but registrations opened one week ahead of the event, via email. First come, first served! For future Nerd Nites, we are sticking with this format, except that registration moved to an automated online form.

The event was a great success! The crowd came out in style (i.e. they carpooled like good kids) and the house was full up!

Our speakers, Gear, Chris and Jann, did such an excellent job, opening our minds, challenging what we know. Gear’s talk covered how white, male scientists under the colonial heteropatriarchy both knowingly and unknowingly biased reporting of early scientific discoveries and distorted public understanding of the natural world, which is filled with queer behaviour in almost every group of animals.

Gear: “One of the few animals that don’t display same-sex sexual behaviour are bears. Ironically, there is no Bear Community in the bear community.” Pic Credit – Lucy Dickie

Chris fascinated us with the evolution of non-binary quantum information changing definitions and public understanding. Jann discussed explained that heteronomatively painted over “Finding Nemo” was a lost opportunity to teach us the actual, factual diversity of fish biology.

With so many thanks to Nerd Nite Okinawa: The 2022 Pride Reboot Speakers Pic Credit – Chris Campbell

Whew! So much awesomeness in one Night! Massive thanks to Jann, who agreed to speak at the last possible moment, for managing registrations and even helping folks to obtain lift sharing from OIST.

Please, remember to reach out to the LGBTQ+ Allies at OIST if you would like to collaborate with them, and do some inter-university, inter-organization events and meetups!!! You can contact them at most definitely not least, thank you from the bottom of the deepest oceans to the incredible Esparza’s Tacos and Coffee Staff and family, without whom Nerd Nite Okinawa would not have happened; Mark Esparza, for his endless kindness and who reminded us to not forget this, Meg Barnett 🫰🫰🫰, event’s organizer at Esparza’s who welcomed and supported us every step of the way, HIC (Hikaru Sunagawa), restaurant manager, help with everything technical (he is also the artist behind the beautiful Platycerium Exhibit) and finally Chef Wunna (Kyaw Wunna Tan) for the excellent menu!!!

Please check out Esparza’s calendar of endless events, beautifully displayed on their Insta page: https://www.instagram.com/esparzastacosandcoffee/.

Next Nerd Nite Oki, is same place and time, July 8th.

Be there and be square!