Foresight Institute is a non-profit advancing frontier biotech, neurotech, nanotech, and AI for the benefit of life. We were co-founded by Eric Drexler and Christine Peterson in 1986 on a vision of great futures enabled by powerful technologies.
Our work is divided into three strategies:
1.
We fund undervalued talent via three programs: grants, fellowships, and prizes
2.
We support field-building and project incubation via our workshops, seminars, and Vision Weekends
3.
We map high-impact paths for progress via our tech trees, technical reports, and Existential Hope program
President & CEO
Chief Operating Officer
Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer
Scientific Partnerships
& Growth Partner
Communications Manager
Existential Hope Director
Program Coordinator
Program Coordinator
Adviser, Fractional CFO
Administrative Manager
Senior Fellow
Director
Director
Director
Treasurer
Secretary
Fellowship
Since 2017, the Foresight fellowship has provided a launchpad for exceptional technical individuals through funding matchmaking, mentorship, career development, and visa support.
Grants
Given potentially short AGI timelines, the Foresight AI Safety Grants award $2M per year to support underexplored AI safety approaches, including AI security, multi-agent AI, automating research, and neuroscience for AI. We accept applications on a rolling basis.
Feynman Prizes
Since 1993, Foresight Institute has awarded the Feynman Prizes to award progress in Nanotechnology. Two former Feynman Prize winners, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart, and David Baker, were later awarded separate Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work we recognized years earlier with our prizes.
The Norm Hardy Prize
The Norm Hardy Prize is awarded to encourage work that helps users make wise computer security decisions.
The Longevity Prize
The Longevity Prize awards outstanding progress in longevity research — crowdsourced and curated by leading industry experts.
Foresight seminars regularly showcase new research and companies to grow a field, functioning as virtual Schelling Points for field-building, hiring, and onboarding talent.
Foresight workshops de-risk undervalued technology frontiers, support networking, fundraising, and co-founder matchmaking, and incubate novel projects that aim to break through critical bottlenecks holding back a field.
Existentialhope.com is a platform that curates future-positive resources and opportunities to coordinate progress in transformative science and technologies for the long-term flourishing of life.
While the majority of our work is focused on hands-on support, we publish seminar summaries, workshop reports, Youtube recordings, podcasts, and a Substack for public education.
Foresight Institute’s Tech Trees map paths to progress in Nanotech, Neurotech, Space, Longevity, and Cryptography to help new talent and funders understand how they can help advance those fields.
HQ:
The Foresight Institute
50 California Street, Suite 1500, San Francisco, CA 94111
