July is coming to an end, and we would like to share with you some of what we has been happening in the past month, and what exciting things are coming up!
Foresight is accepting applications for our 2023 Fellowship Cohort!
Are you working on a project that is too ambitious for legacy funders to support? Do you care about advancing technologies for beneficial long-term futures? Scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs in longevity, molecular machines, neurotech, computing, and space; we want to support you! Apply to become a 2023 Foresight Fellow: no mandatory activities; we work hand in hand with you to support you! Apply here.
The meetings from our Biotech & Health Extension, Intelligent Cooperation, Molecular Machines and Neurotech groups this month are available and can all be found here:
All eight of these people received the Future of Life Award. Read more about the award here.
This video tells the stories of eight real-life heroes, ordinary people who found themselves in extraordinary situations, at crossroads with significance far beyond themselves. In the face of resistance and personal risk, they decided to act for the good of all life on Earth. Together, these stories show how the future of life can be defended and supported with courage, science, consensus-building, innovation and hard work. The Future of Life Award recognizes overlooked heroes who made the world a much better place than it might otherwise have been.
On August 6th, FLI announces this year’s new winners of the Award. Watch this space.
Dear Foresighters,
I was wondering if I could ask for your networking help?
I’m part of the longevity community at Foresight, faculty at UCLA, trained as a quantum engineer, and I currently work in an emerging field called Quantum Biology. Right now, I see very little hope of (high-tech) Quantum Biology happening thru academia and/or government grants.
This is why I am calling for the establishment of a focused research organization (a.k.a. FRO) on Quantum Biology, to be active for ~ 5–7 years and to bring lasting change to the way the scientific community thinks about, and funds, Quantum Biology experiments.
My vision is detailed here: “The Future of Biology is Quantum”.
Is there any way that you could share this with your network, scientific stakeholders, visionary colleagues? Any help is much appreciated. I’ll be happy to engage with interested parties on how best to make this vision come true.
Thanks for your attention, and cheers from sunny LA!
Clarice D. Aiello ([email protected])
This Cointelegraph article, written by Foresight’s president Allison Duettmann, explores how Foresight’s current Tech Tree project can aid coordination, technology trees help decentralize science and provide an overview of the field, existing work and open challenges. Read here.
The Foresight Fellowship is a one-year program committed to giving change-makers the support to accelerate their bold ideas into the future. Here’s what our fellows have been up to.
News from Foresight Fellow, Mac Davis:
We have begun Phase I/IIa trials in Prospera for our follistatin life extension candidate and are organizing the Prospera Healthcare Summit in September.
https://infinitafund.com/healthtech2022
Two more trials are expected to begin this year! One in HIV and one in klotho for kidney disease. Please contact me for entrance into any of the trials.
We also won the pitch competition at Freedom Fest in Las Vegas last week.
Our new website:
Http://Minicircle.clinic/
Yip Fai Tse published a paper with Peter Singer: AI Ethics: The Case For Including Animals. In the paper they argued that animals matter, and that AI impacts animals deeply, and therefore the scope of AI ethics should extend to animals.
From Fellow, Joshua Tan:
We recently launched a cryptopolitical party, a study of DAO constitutions, and an attestations framework for DAOs as part of DAOstar. We’re co-organizing the Redwood Parliament at Dweb Camp Aug. 24-28 and the Stanford DAO Workshop on Sept. 1. We also recently won a million-dollar NSF grant to study governance transitions, in collaboration with UC Davis, UWash, and UC Boulder. More at this substack.
From Fellow, Tom Schroeder:
I’ll be starting a new tenure-track position as an Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University next month in their Department of Textile Engineering, Chemistry, and Science. My research group will initially focus on polymer-crystal interactions and gel-based ionic circuitry, but I will be making a concerted effort to leverage the unique resources at NCSU’s College of Textiles (click here and here for examples) to scale up the materials we develop at the bench to the size of garments or even buildings. If any other people in the Foresight community are working on something that could benefit from access to these facilities, a good scientific discussion, or a sustained collaboration, I encourage them to reach out!
Rob Meagley joined the U.S. Department of Energy in the Solar Energy Technologies Office, Manufacturing and Competitiveness Team, where he curates a portfolio of technologies based on advanced materials and their integration as a blend of pathfinding, early stage and growth firms. He also manages the Solar District Cup program for DOE, a nation-wide collegiate competition in solar energy systems project design, engineering, finance and pitching. He now (2022) has 45 US patents awarded with many associated foreign awards. He is a champion for the early proliferation of quality engineering, and enjoys interdisciplinary collaboration.
Many areas within the molecular machines field could be sped up via advancements on the software and simulation-side. This two-day workshop invited a select group of specialists in software and simulation to apply their skills to help those tackling the challenges of constructing atomically-precise 3D structures, including pathways using chemistry, applied physics, biochemistry, molecular biology, and engineering.
Part of the Foresight attended ETH Barcelona, where we exhibited our NFT Gallery that helps fund science, and hosted a workshop on how Blockchain Technology can help decentralize science (DeSci). DeSci is a new movement that is trying to find new ways of funding and driving scientific progress, since current institutional academia can be very slow.
In connection with ETHcc in Paris, Foresight organized a DeSci day collaboration with Lab DAO and CNRS, sponsored by Springer Nature.
Among the presenters were Foresight’s own Allison Duettmann and Lou de Kerhuelvez, hosting sessions on Foresight’s Tech Tree project, ethics within DeSci and the Gaming the Future book.
Digital asset entrepreneurs, developers, venture capitalists and enthusiasts gathered in Cambridge, MA for the Imagination in Action Web3 Summit, where the movers and shakers ranged from Stuart Haber and Scott Stornetta, co-inventors of blockchain, to Web 2.0 grand dame Esther Dyson and Foresight Research Director Aaron King, presenting the Foresight Tech Tree project.
