Contact is an annual interdisciplinary conference that brings together renowned social and space scientists, science fiction writers and artists to exchange ideas, stimulate new perspectives, and encourage serious, creative speculation about humanity's future.
Since its beginnings, the Contact conference has fostered interdisciplinary inquiries into art, literature, exploration and scientific investigation.
Contact was conceived by anthropologist Jim Funaro in 1979, and the first formal conference was held in 1983 in Santa Cruz, California.
In many previous years, the COTI HI project involved teams of high school students in the creation of scientifically accurate extraterrestrial beings, and in simulated encounters between two such races.
Contact has been closely allied with the SETI Institute, and its early participants created the hypothetical planet Epona as covered in the Discovery Channel documentary Natural History of an Alien.