As far as I know, he's confirmed.

This is a separate event from the talks that people can volunteer to give.

We will not be requiring a paper, only an abstract. So feel free to apply if you have an idea you'd like to present but don't have a paper ready. I don't think we currently have plans to index the abstracts on google scholar, but I can check with the more senior organizers to see if they'd like to.

Also, the talks will be around 10 minutes each.

I'm not sure I understand. I would think that in the face of uncertainty it would be better to divide donations in accordance to how likely we find each model.

Really quick question: I was wondering why the 1.5:1 ratio is enough to outweigh your uncertainty about REG's impact?