First, we focus on the more threatening human factors that have led to our global challenges – the cognitive biases, ideological thinking, myopia, and all of the failures of empathy and imagination that have shaped the anthropogenic polycrisis of today, instigating, aiding and abetting issues like intergroup conflict, climate change, overconsumption, intractable poverty, and misinformation. To tackle these challenges effectively, we need to better understand and better address the human root causes driving them.

Secondly, we integrate and promote the more positive human factors that hold the potential to remedy these problems – e.g., creativity, leadership, critical thinking, empathy, and emotional intelligence. These qualities are the key to designing innovative solutions, nurturing inclusive societies, and addressing the existential threats faced by our cultures, species, and planet.

Our institute’s unique interdisciplinary approach simultaneously targets the dynamic interplay between these human factors and emerging technologies. AI, virtual reality, quantum computing, nanotechnology, genetic engineering, and synthetic biology are reshaping the human condition and what it means to be human. The future that grows out of these technologies will be a reflection of the human psychology – individual and collective – that wields them.

Members of our advisory board are world-class experts and leaders in their fields who are dedicated to unraveling some of the complex, interdisciplinary challenges facing humanity. Our objective is to engage in a dialogue and propose projects that transcend conventional boundaries, aiming to offer innovative insights and implement pragmatic solutions to some of the most pressing concerns of our time.

We have no choice but to navigate uncharted territories and work with those very different from us, to judiciously embrace technology and harness the best of our human potentials to overcome our own weaknesses.  

We hope you will find ways of joining us – and others – in some of the exploration and further development required to produce a brighter future for us all.