About

Sean Bonner is a Los Angeles based entrepreneur, journalist, activist and enthusiast.

He has been featured in Cool Hunting, GOOD, Wired, Playboy, Salon, Forbes, been included in Yahoo!’s Best of the Web, and has spoken at conferences, events, and coffee shops around the world.

Currently Sean’s time is split between Safecast (an open global sensor network currently monitoring radiation levels in Japan), Neoteny Labs (an early stage consumer internet startup fund focusing on South East Asia) and Coffee Common (a customer education brand collaboration launched at TED 2011). He is one of the founders of Crash Space, a Los Angeles hackerspace and has been a regular contributor to BoingBoing.

A frequent speaker, Sean explores topics ranging from lifestyle hacks to blogs, media, and grassroots journalism. Recently he’s spoken at TechCrunch Disrupt (NYC), TEDxVienna [video], Ignite Toronto, SXSWi (Austin, TX), Roboexotica (Vienna, Austria) and Re:Publica (Berlin, Germany). Sean has organized conferences and unconferences including the first BarCamp in Los Angeles and The New Context Conference in Tokyo.

As co-founder of Bode Media Inc, Sean helped create Metblogs, the first global network of local media sites. As a consultant, he’s helped The Groop, Jack In The Box, LAPD, Suicide Girls, Obey Giant, Shopzilla and others interact with their customers, clients, and fans online. Sean has also hosted the iPhone game review show iPhun and recently designed the cover of Die Antwoord’s “$O$” album.

Prior to all this, Sean helped build the groundbreaking contemporary art gallery sixspace exhibiting artists such as Glen E. Friedman, Shepard Fairey, Coop, Chad Robertson and others. He also ran a record label and produced several records by Hot Water Music and Less Than Jake to name a few. He’s managed a design firm, worked as Sr. Designer for Playboy.com and Creative Director for Victory Records. Way before that he was a dishwasher.

“Sean Bonner is a pioneer of social software, Internet memes and online publishing. In addition to being an excellent and highly sought-after speaker, he is quickly becoming known as one of the celebrated icons of the modern Internet subculture – his mere presence attracting huge crowds of fans. I for one am a true believer.”
- Joi Ito, Chairman Creative Commons / Director MIT Media Lab