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Advancing beneficial technology
Foresight Institute is a non-profit organization focused on emerging world-shaping technologies. It was founded in 1986 on a vision of coming revolutions in technology that will bring extraordinary opportunities, as well as unprecedented challenges. Foresight’s mission is to steer towards positive futures, futures of Existential Hope.
If we push in the right directions — learning, teaching, arguing, shifting directions, and pushing further — then we may yet steer the technology race toward a future with room enough for our dreams.
—K. Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation
Join our reflection on creating positive futures
News and Updates
Join us today, 6 pm PT for a fantastic online salon on Accelerating Development of Pan-Corona Vaccine and Therapeutics using Breakthrough Genetic Medicine
At Aegis we are developing next generation vaccines and therapies for the world’s most dangerous diseases – including the current threat, the novel COVID-19 coronavirus. I’m particularly passionate about bringing exciting new technologies from the lab to market, and I’ve been involved as founder in launching 6 start-ups using technology I’ve developed. At Aegis, our core technology is a breakthrough genetic medicine platform called Fusogenix – it literally fuses with cells to allow patients to make their own medicines. This remarkable non-viral gene delivery platform allows us to rapidly prototype nucleic-acid-based therapies and move them into clinical development in record time. And we have a significant advantage when it comes to scaling – our massively parallel microfluidic manufacturing system will allow us to scale to hundreds of millions of doses in a matter of months. And our first target is COVID-19, we have already screened dozens of DNA vaccine candidates. We are targeting the start of Phase I human clinical trials by July, 2020 and are on track to make our vaccine commercially available within one year. Aegis has an incredible team, and the only DNA vaccine platform that can scale quickly enough to meet the demands of the current pandemic. Every day counts.
Dr. John Lewis is CEO of Aegis Biodefence, a biotechnology company developing genetic vaccines and therapeutics for infectious diseases using the Fusogenix drug delivery system. Dr. John Lewis is also the co-founder of OncoSenX and heads its cancer-fighting platform technology development and CEO of Nanostics, a company that develops and commercials novel, non-invasive cancer diagnostic tests. Dr. Lewis holds the Frank and Carla Sojonky Chair in Prostate Cancer Research at the University of Alberta and is a Professor in the Department of Oncology, where he chairs the Alberta Prostate Cancer Research Initiative.
Foresight Sanity Preserver: Up to twice a day, free online salon hosted by Foresight Institute, focused on connecting over positive futures from COVID-19, and beyond.
Join us via this Zoom link: bit.ly/foresightsanitypreserver
All past and future salons: foresight.org/sanity-schedule/
Add the salons to your Google calendar: bit.ly/sanitycal
Watch the videos: foresight.org/salons/daily-global/
Join our mailing list: bit.ly/foresightnews
Excited for tonight's online salon, 6 pm PT: Which Societies Produce Breakthrough Technology? | Ben Landau-Taylor, Bismarck Analysis
A small number of societies have produced almost all of the breakthrough technologies in human history. Social conditions that allow rapid innovation in technology and industry are rare and fragile. What are these conditions? How do they translate into technological progress?
Ben Landau-Taylor studies industrial economics. He works at Bismarck Analysis, a consulting firm that investigates the political and institutional landscape of society.
HOW TO JOIN:
Foresight Sanity Preserver: Up to twice a day, free online salon hosted by Foresight Institute, focused on connecting over positive futures from COVID-19, and beyond.
Join us via this Zoom link: bit.ly/foresightsanitypreserver
All past and future salons: foresight.org/sanity-schedule/
Add the salons to your Google calendar: bit.ly/sanitycal
Watch the videos: foresight.org/salons/daily-global/
Join our mailing list: bit.ly/foresightnews
Join us tomorrow, Thursday, 9 am West Coast / 6 pm Europe: We’re zooming out into space with two fantastic lightning talks, followed by Q&A:
Isolation on Space Trips | Jose Luis Cordeiro
Risk Aversion Delays Solar System Development | Rand Simberg
José Luis Cordeiro is an engineer, economist, futurist, and transhumanist, who has worked on different areas including economic development, international relations, Latin America, the European Union, monetary policy, comparison of constitutions, energy trends, cryonics, and longevity. Books he has authored include The Great Taboo, Constitutions Around the World: A Comparative View from Latin America, and (in Spanish) El Desafio Latinoamericano ("The Latin American challenge") and La Muerte de la Muerte ("The death of death").
Rand Simberg is an aerospace engineer and a consultant in space commercialization, space tourism, and Internet security. He is the author of Safe Is Not an Option: Overcoming the Futile Obsession with ‘Getting Everyone Back Alive’ That Is Killing Our Expansion into Space (2013).
HOW TO JOIN:
Foresight Sanity Preserver: Up to twice a day, free online salon hosted by Foresight Institute, focused on connecting over positive futures from COVID-19, and beyond.
Join us via this Zoom link: bit.ly/foresightsanitypreserver
All past and future salons: foresight.org/sanity-schedule/
Add the salons to your Google calendar: bit.ly/sanitycal
Watch the videos: foresight.org/salons/daily-global/
Join our mailing list: bit.ly/foresightnews
Today, Wednesday, 6 pm PT: Join us for two lightning talks on COVID-19 impacts on our technological and physical infrastructure, followed by Q&A:
Improving Spectral Efficiency | Jerrold Prothero:
"Sheltering in place is now exposing limitations of communications bandwidth. We're developing Spiral Modulation, a novel approach to optimize how we transmit and receive communication signals in order to improve spectral efficiency. Improved spectral efficiency enables satellite, terrestrial wireless, IoT, and defense network service providers to get more information into a narrower range of frequencies using dramatically less required signal power serving global users of radios, smart devices, modems and sensors who have no, limited or degraded broadband."
Spatial and Temporal Patterns of COVID-19 | Yfei Sun:
"I will examine the spatial and temporal patterns and processes of corona-virus, why advanced countries have performed so poorly compared with developing Countries? How to understand the NYC supporting areas? How California is doing? Where will the trend go globally and nationally?"
Jerrold Prothero, PhD, developed the generalization of Euler’s formula that led to his invention of the patented spiral modulation technology, which has wide application in the telecommunications industry. He is the Principal Investigator for a National Science Foundation SBIR Phase II grant to refine and commercialize spiral modulation. Jerrold has authored over forty patent cases among ten patent families that are issued, pending, filed provisionally and covered under international Patent Cooperation Treaty provisions. He has advised both the private sector and the U.S. Government on technology issues.
Dr. Yfei Sun was Professor of urban and regional economic development and innovation California State University, Northridge (CSUN) and is the Founding President of the newly created non-profit organization I3D, with the aim to build an internationally renowned think tank on economic and corporate development and innovation strategies. He is a reputable scholar on innovation in urban and regional development as well as in business strategies and innovation. He is organizing the annual summit “Envisioning Los Angeles 2050+: Leadership and Making Los Angeles a Global Innovation Centers.” (www.la2050.net”). Co-editor of “Global R&D in China” and China as an Innovation Nation.
HOW TO JOIN:
Foresight Sanity Preserver: Up to twice a day, free online salon hosted by Foresight Institute, focused on positive futures from COVID-19, and beyond.
Join us via this Zoom link: bit.ly/foresightsanitypreserver
All past and future salons: foresight.org/sanity-schedule/
Add the salons to your Google calendar: bit.ly/sanitycal
Watch the videos: bit.ly/sanityplaylist
Join our mailing list: bit.ly/foresightnews
Tomorrow (Tuesday) morning, 9 am West Coast/ 6 pm Europe: We cannot wait to have Anthony Aguirre for an online salon on Metaculus: Forecasting the pandemic and many other things.
"I’ll discuss Metaculus, and the newly-launched Metaculus pandemic project pandemic.metaculus.com. The aim of both is to provide a platform for organizing and aggregating well-calibrated and accurate predictions, and to help people make better predictions and establish a clear track record in doing so. I’ll describe what Metaculus is, how it works, its track record to date, its application to the COVID-19 pandemic, and its near- and long-term plans, and invite conversation as to how it can be as effective and useful as possible."
Anthony Aguirre, Professor, UC Santa Cruz, and Cofounder of Future of Life Institute. Aguirre is the Faggin Presidential Professor for the Physics of Information at UC Santa Cruz, and has done research in an array of topics in theoretical cosmology, gravitation, statistical mechanics, and other fields of physics. He also has strong interest in science outreach, and has appeared in numerous science documentaries. He is a creator of the science and technology prediction platform Metaculus.com, and is founder (with Max Tegmark) of the Foundational Questions Institute.
HOW TO JOIN:
Join us via this Zoom link: bit.ly/foresightsanitypreserver
All past and future salons: foresight.org/sanity-schedule/
Add the salons to your Google calendar: bit.ly/sanitycal
Join our mailing list: bit.ly/foresightnews
Last week's daily salon summary & what not to miss this week! - mailchi.mp/foresight/last-weeks-daily-salon-summary-what-not-to-miss-this-week
Tonight (Monday, April 13) at 6 pm: Join us for an online salon with Samo Burja, Bismarck Analysis, on How Bureaucracies Respond to Crisis:
Many of the worlds largest and most influential organizations face challenges in responding to the ongoing pandemic. How do bureaucracies respond to crisis? History has many examples that can help inform our predictions of what will and won't change when the dust settles.
Samo Burja is the founder of Bismarck Analysis, a consulting firm that investigates the institutional landscape of society, usually in political risk. Samo is also a research fellow at the Long Now Foundation amd Senior Research Fellow in Political Science at the Foresight Institute.
Foresight Sanity Preserver: Up to twice a day, free online salon hosted by Foresight Institute, focused on positive futures from COVID-19, and beyond.
Join us via this Zoom link: bit.ly/foresightsanitypreserver
All past and future salons: foresight.org/sanity-schedule/
Add the salons to your Google calendar: bit.ly/sanitycal
Watch the videos: foresight.org/salons/daily-global/
Apply to host a salon: bit.ly/sanityspeakers
Join our mailing list: bit.ly/foresightnews
Thrilled for tomorrow's online salon, 9 am West Coast time, 6 pm Europe:
A Proposal to Accelerate Vaccine Production Now | David Manheim, University of Haifa
It seem likely that in the next 6 months we will need to start producing massive quantities of a vaccine - but we don't know what it will be, yet. Even if we did, we don't have enough vaccine production facilities to quickly produce the billions of doses we are likely to need globally, at least without stopping production of many many other types of needed vaccines.But vaccine production facilities are very expensive, in the range of a half billion dollars, and companies are not rushing to build them, and governments are notoriously bad at picking winners in the economy, and slow. My proposal is for government to offer to buy put-options for any vaccine production facilities that are started now, with a bonus for early delivery. With such an option, a company with the resources to build such a facility can do so with little or no risk - and by the time the facilities are needed, they will be well on their way.
David Manheim a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Haifa's Health and Risk Communication Research Center. His recent work for has focused on understanding and mitigating global catastrophic biological risks with groups at Oxford and for various nonprofits and NGOs in the United States. Prior to this, he completed a PhD in public policy and decision theory at the RAND Corporation while doing work that ranged from informing policy decisionmaking for infectious diseases, to flood insurance and resiliency building in the wake of catastrophes, to counter-terrorism finance and virtual currencies.
HOW TO JOIN:
Foresight Sanity Preserver: Up to twice a day, free online salon hosted by Foresight Institute, focused on connecting over positive futures from COVID-19, and beyond.
Join us via this Zoom link: bit.ly/foresightsanitypreserver
All past and future salons: foresight.org/sanity-schedule/
Add the salons to your Google calendar: bit.ly/sanitycal
Watch the videos: foresight.org/salons/daily-global/
Join our mailing list: bit.ly/foresightnews
Tomorrow, 9 am West Coast / 6 pm Europe, we are thrilled to welcome Yancey Strickler, co-founder & former CEO of Kickstarter for our global online salon on Bentoism:
Yancey Strickler is the cofounder and former CEO of Kickstarter, author of This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World (Viking), and the creator of Bentoism. Yancey has been recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People. He’s spoken at the Museum of Modern Art, Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals, Web Summit, MIT, and events around the globe. He cofounded the artist resource The Creative Independent and the record label eMusic Selects. Yancey grew up in Clover Hollow, Virginia, and began his career as a music critic in New York City.
Bentoism: A workshop teaching people a simple practice for developing their active awareness called bentoism. It's a simple framework for seeing beyond their immediate self-interest. More here: bentoism.org/ and Here: ideaspace.substack.com/p/our-new-normal…
Foresight Sanity Preserver: Up to twice a day, free online salon hosted by Foresight Institute, focused on connecting over positive futures from COVID-19, and beyond.
Join us via this Zoom link: bit.ly/foresightsanitypreserver
All past and future salons: foresight.org/sanity-schedule/
Add the salons to your Google calendar: bit.ly/sanitycal
Watch the videos: foresight.org/salons/daily-global/
Join our mailing list: bit.ly/foresightnews
Join us tomorrow, 9 am for our next global online salon:
Personal and Local Community Production | Mike Doty
Disruptive new technology has emerged in many fields which enables individuals and small organizations to produce locally and personally. This presents an opportunity to develop a decentralized, distributed, peer to peer alternative economy using alternative financial and monetary systems. It also enables people to replace the need to acquire currency to exchange for products with the ability to produce the items themselves on demand.
Mike Doty is a mechanical engineer with experience in design, including manufacturing, analysis, testing, and systems integration in the automotive, petrochemical, nuclear, aerospace, medical instruments, and consumer products industries. He received his BS Degree in Engineering and Applied Science from the California Institute of Technology.
HOW TO JOIN:
Foresight Sanity Preserver: Up to twice a day, free online salon hosted by Foresight Institute, focused on connecting over positive futures from COVID-19, and beyond.
Join us via this Zoom link: bit.ly/foresightsanitypreserver
All past and future salons: foresight.org/sanity-schedule/
Add the salons to your Google calendar: bit.ly/sanitycal
Watch the videos: foresight.org/salons/daily-global/
Join our mailing list: bit.ly/foresightnews
