Run, don’t walk, or better yet take your flying machine to see LEONARDO: 500 Years into the Future. This 30,000 square foot exhibit is at the Tech Museum for a limited time and ends on January 4th. ValleyZen was so impressed with our first visit that we returned and took some friends with us again yesterday. Why you should make it a must on your todo list of mind-expanding activities for 2008:

# 10 Rack up Renaissance Frequent Flyer Miles…

The Tech Awards show that “Big changes come from simple solutions” said Tech President Peter Friess —opening an elegant black tie gala for the premier annual humanitarian awards programs in the world. Over 1500 Tech Museum friends & donors gathered to honor 25 global innovators (Laureates) who were carefully selected from hundreds of applications received from 68 countries. $250,000 in cash awards were distributed on one evening.

“We are gathering all the intellectual capital of all these prestigious laureates…

ValleyZen was invited to the third Singularity Summit 2008 – a conference discussing “The Singularity” a point at which machines will be able to surpass human intelligence. Ray Kurzweil, CEO of Kurzweil Technologies and author of The Singularity is Near headlined the conference along with technological and academic heavyweights like Intel CTO Justin Rattner, X PRIZE Foundation Founder, Chair & CEO Peter Diamandis, Investor/Entrepreneur Esther Dyson, MIT Center for Bits and Atoms Director Neil Gershenfeld, CEO of Novamente, director of research at SIAI, Ben Goertzel, and over a dozen others.

At a private reception hosted the night before the conference at the Tech Museum, we spoke with Ben Goertzel. Drue asked Ben if a machine could reach enlightenment. Please check out his response. It’s sure to provoke you…