The Foresight Fellowship is a one-year program committed to giving change-makers the support to accelerate their bold ideas into the future. Our mission is to catalyze collaboration among leading young scientists, engineers, and innovators who work to advance technologies for the benefit of life.
If you’d like to nominate anyone or apply for the 2024 Foresight Fellowship, please do so here. Applications close on July 31st at midnight PDT!
The future will be designed from the bottom up!
Be sure to send in your applications to our upcoming Molecular Systems Design Workshop in San Francisco ASAP, as spots are running out. This two-day workshop will allow attendees to explore new opportunities, form lasting collaborations, and drive cooperation toward shared long-term goals.
If you or someone you know would like to help sponsor the workshop, please get in touch with [email protected]. Foresight is a 501(c)(3) which means your donation is tax-deductible in the US as permitted by law.
Confirmed presenters include:
The Feynman Prizes are named in honor of the physicist Richard Feynman. In 1959, Feynman gave a talk titled “There’s Plenty Of Room At The Bottom,” which is considered by many industry advocates to have inspired the field of nanotechnology itself.
With the Feynman Prizes, Foresight Institute wishes to recognize recent and brilliant achievements that contribute deeply to the field of Nanotechnology.
Applications are closing on July 31st at midnight (PDT) so submit yours today.
See also: The Norm Hardy Prize for usable security & The Collegiate Propulsive Lander Challenge
This picture shows an early vision of what Molecular Machines can help us do some day. “Several billion dermal display nanorobots residing in the epidermis of a human hand can be used as display screens to access real-time physiological information or other stored data, as described by Robert Freitas in Section 7.4.6.7 of Nanomedicine, Vol. I. In this third of four images, the fully visible dermal display screen (in background) shows a clear representation of the concentration and kinds of in vivo nanorobots, to the approval of the user (in foreground)”. © Copyright 1999 by Tim Fonseca. From Foresight Insitute’s old Nanomedicine art gallery.
Tiny molecular machines could bring about big changes. Beatrice Erkers, Foresight COO, recently published this article as a primer to nanotechnology and Foresight’s historic involvement in the field.
Thank you to all who joined us for the Intelligent Cooperation Workshop hosted at the Internet Archive on July 10-11.
Check out the top projects that resulted from the day #2 working groups:
1st Place: Automatically Mapping Discourse – Jamie Joyce, Brendon Wong, Rob Luke
2nd Place: Personal AI Assistant – Anders Størkson Berge, Alex Seyfert, Dima Usynin
3rd Place: Preventing Collusion – Lewis Hammond, Keenan Pepper, Andrew Gritsevskiy, David Bloomin
Keep your eyes on our Youtube channel for talk recordings and working group presentations!
Our Vision Weekends are the annual member festivals of Foresight Institute. Held in two countries, over two weekends, top talent across biotechnology, nanotechnology, neurotechnology, computing, and space are encouraged to burst their tech silos, and plan for flourishing long-term futures together.
Take a look at the weekend agenda here.
Space is limited for these highly engaging weekends. Get your tickets for Vision Weekend France or Vision Weekend USA today!
Allison Duettmann, Foresight’s CEO, was recently joined interviewed by Patrick Gruban of EA Germany on her involvement with the EA community, longtermism, and how she originally got involved. Read the transcript here.
Stuart Armstrong of Aligned AI joined Foresight’s Existential Hope Salon Series on July 26th to discuss AI alignment.
Danielle Fong, Lightcell Energy, recently demonstrated light to electricity efficiency of about 60% at the maximum power point of Lightcell’s special cells. She also officially opened their office in SOMA, San Francisco! Congratulations!!
Check out their amazing website here: https://lightcellenergy.com/
Congratulations to 2023 Foresight Fellow Ekaterina Ilin who recently published a paper in the Royal Astronomical Society! The topic is how we could resolve
magnetic features on the (unresolved) surfaces of stars, to ultimately understand the severity of space weather for exoplanet habitability. Check out the paper and and shorter blog post.
Ross Gruetzemacher and the Transformative Futures Institute have just launched their new website. Check them out at transformative.org!
Barry Bentley, Cardiff Metropolitan University, received a Fulbright Award to conduct his research at Harvard University and Mass General Hospital. His focus there will be to develop technologies to preserve cells, tissues, and organs by “freezing biological time”. With the chronic shortage of organs for transplantation, improving the ability to store organs could by some estimates prevent or delay up to 35% of all deaths annually.
Jamie Joyce, Society Library, will be hosting AI Knowledge Mapping hackathons at the Internet Archive every Tuesday over the summer! Calling all alignment researchers to RSVP here.
Here is a highlight reel of some of the fantastic presentations we had in our monthly seminar groups during July. Visit our seminar page to dive deeper.
Programmable molecular self-assembly with DNA origami is an attractive route toward implementing these principles to create synthetic molecular machinery. Hendrik combines computational design and cryo electron microscopy to learn how to construct synthetic molecular objects with increasing accuracy and increasing complexity.
Eric Hargan | Reimbursement for Longevity Treatments
In this talk, Eric Hargan will discuss the challenges and opportunities for gaining reimbursement and insurance coverage for longevity treatments. He will review the current healthcare reimbursement landscape in the U.S. and how new medical technologies and treatments are evaluated for coverage and payment.
Varun Dwaraka | Moving Beyond Chronological Age Based Biological Clocks
In recent years, DNA methylation (DNAm) has shown remarkable associations to aging and longevity. However, these clocks have had issues which have presented problems with clinical application. Mainly, the precision of these markers has been limited, some clocks don’t respond to validated biological interventions, and immune cell changes have been confounding factors
Daron Acemoglu | New Paths for Human-Technology Synergy
In this episode we welcome renowned academic and author, Daron Acemoglu, Institute professor and Economist at MIT. He sheds light on how technology can either sideline or empower humans, depending on how it’s harnessed.
An opportunity for aspiring writers excited about progress studies
The Roots of Progress has just announced a new blog-building program. This is an opportunity for people to learn from some established writers and leaders in the progress community, to receive coaching on your writing, and to build your audience. The part-time, 8-week online program runs from mid-September to mid-November, and applications are now open (deadline is August 11th). You can learn more and apply here.
CHT’s mission is to realign technology with humanity’s best interests. They are dedicated to leading a comprehensive shift toward technology that strengthens our well-being, global democratic functioning, and shared information environment. Learn more and apply for the executive business partner position here.
The Transformative Futures Institute (TFI) is a new nonprofit organization seeking to use foresight to ensure vibrant and prosperous futures for all of humanity.
TFI is hiring for researcher(s) with interests at the intersection of policy, foresight and AI who are passionate about creating vibrant and prosperous futures. Interested individuals are encouraged to apply quickly as the position(s) is open until filled. More information can be found at: https://transformative.org/open-positions/.
As an active part of our community of talented scientists and technologists who expand the limit of our civilization’s capabilities, you will be at the forefront of our research, and our intriguing network.
