Community

Science belongs to everyone. Smarter with Science is a network of researchers, patients, and builders who believe the best discoveries happen when the doors are open and the tools are shared.

Pixel-art portrait of Stanley caught mid-explanation — three-quarter view, lab coat over purple turtleneck, round blue glasses, STANLEY badge, right hand raised with index finger pointing upward in a Feynman gesture, soft-warm lab interior background

Smarter with Science

Science is too important to be left to scientists alone. And communities are too smart to be excluded from the solutions that shape their lives.

Smarter with Science is a community-consortium — researchers, patients, builders, students, and the simply curious, working together on problems that matter. We provide the computational infrastructure, operational support, and storytelling power so that researchers doing the hard work can focus on what they're best at. We are Q to their James Bond.

We're not an institution. No org charts. No gatekeepers. Autonomous working groups — we call them pods — pursue their own missions under a shared values framework. Contribution is the credential. The door is always open.

Science Sundays

Venice Beach lab — passionate researchers gathered around screens and coffee in warm studio light

Every Sunday at The KINN in Venice Beach, we hold what Stanley calls "Church for the Curious." Part science fair, part hackathon, part beach party. No prerequisites. No credentials required. Show up with curiosity and you belong.

The morning session (11 AM – 1 PM) is for pod members — sprint updates, blockers, cross-pod coordination. Real work gets done. The afternoon (1 PM – 4 PM) opens the doors: show-and-tell, demos, discussions, and community onboarding. A marine biologist sits next to a blockchain developer sits next to a high school student. The unexpected connections are the point.

Beyond Sundays, the Venice community hosts weekly Wednesday DeSci events and monthly Saturday hackathons with technology partners. Science Sunday with a cup of coffee and a bunch of screens — that's the rhythm.

The Pod System

Pods are self-directed working groups within SwS. Each one pursues its own mission — setting its own agenda, producing real outputs (code, data, curricula, prototypes), and reporting progress at Sunday morning sessions. Anyone at Science Sunday can join a pod. The best science happens when diverse experts self-organize around problems they care about.

Ocean ViSION

Marine climate solutions — ocean eDNA monitoring, citizen science, protein language models trained on ocean biodiversity. Partnering with UCSD and New Atlantis Labs. Running ocean genomics curriculum at Venice High.

AI Impact Ventures

Companies where profit and purpose amplify each other. Startup mentorship through UCLA Anderson, altruistic AI agent pilots with Cedars-Sinai. Building the case that doing good and doing well aren't separate projects.

Quantum Biology

Making biological research data shareable. Federated approaches to sensitive biodata, FAIR data advocacy, rare disease data sharing protocols. Integrating with Lattice Protocol infrastructure.

Community Resilience

Rapid-response science for local needs. When the LA fires hit, this pod designed air filters in 72 hours and got cleaner air to ten thousand students. Turning community crises into community capabilities.

event

DeSci Wednesdays

Weekly Venice Beach DeSci meetup — decentralized science discussions, project demos, and cross-community coordination.

pod

Ocean ViSION Pod

Marine climate solutions — ocean eDNA monitoring, citizen science surveys, and protein language models trained on ocean biodiversity. Partnering with UCSD and running ocean genomics curriculum at Venice High.

event

Saturday Hackathons

Monthly hackathons with technology partners — turning community challenges into working prototypes in a single day.

event

Science Sundays

Weekly open sessions where community members present research, demo tools, and learn together. No credentials required — just curiosity.

program

Smarter with Science

A network of researchers, patients, and builders organized into small pods. Weekly Science Sundays, shared tools, open doors.

partner

The KINN

Venice Beach community center and home base for Science Sundays. A space where marine biologists sit next to blockchain developers sit next to high school students.

Partnerships

We show up, ask "How can I help?", and build the tools people need. These partnerships are the result of that approach — not pitches, not proposals, just showing up and doing useful work alongside people we admire.

Research

  • Stanford Medicine — Rare Disease AI Hackathon co-design
  • Mayo Clinic — Undiagnosed Patients Hackathon (130 collaborators, 28 countries)
  • Cedars-Sinai / Dartmouth — Oncology AI agents and spatial transcriptomics
  • UCSD — Marine science and ocean eDNA biomonitoring
  • Wilhelm Foundation — Rare disease language models

Education

  • UCLA — Venture Accelerator, ML Scientist in Residence
  • Venice High STEM Magnet — Ocean genomics curriculum
  • LAUSD + Oxford Nanopore — Spatial DNA education (K-12)

Infrastructure

  • Dell — Computational infrastructure
  • NVIDIA — GPU partnerships
  • Chan Zuckerberg Initiative — Mentorship programs
  • Lilypad Network — Decentralized compute for altruistic AI

Open Science

  • DeepChem — Research architect, GSoC mentor
  • LabDAO — First DeSci molecule discovery
  • VitaDAO / MoleculeDAO — ~$50M raised for open science