Meet Scout: An imaginative community for technology journalism.

At Scout, we’ve read a lot of tech & science news. Breathless news about the latest gadgets; about which company bought who; about the personal lives of powerful tech execs.

That kind of news can be useful.

But we think you also deserve more than that. You deserve the kind of news that’s going to help you understand where technologies like self-driving cars and genetic augmentation might be taking us. And you deserve to play a part in deciding how we as a society use those technologies.

That’s where we come in.

Scout is combining near-term science-fiction and multimedia reporting to do deep-dive coverage at the intersection of technology, economics, and morality.

Our goal is to accelerate the creation of a better future through stories, conversations and prototypes.

Every 1–3 months we’ll tackle one big topic — How is genetic augmentation shaping class and privilege? What does it mean that artificial intelligence is helping us communicate with animals? How will mobile encryption change the face of democracy?

We’ll take you to the cutting edge of these technologies and show you around. Then we’ll recruit world class technologists to share their ideas about where these industries are headed and what that means for society and the economy.

Along the way, we’ll complement our reporting with sci-fi visions of the near-term future from best-selling and emerging sci-fi authors. These won’t just be a bunch of dystopias or cautionary tales (although there might be a few of those in the mix as well). We want to bring you stories that illustrate creative solutions and possible visions of a better future.

We believe that the world benefits by bringing smart, passionate people together and then inspiring them. That’s why Scout members will be invited to exclusive in-person conversations and events with our authors and experts.

If all of this sounds like a club you’d like to join, please consider becoming a member by backing us on Kickstarter. Though we met our financial goal in the first eight days of our campaign, we’re still striving toward our larger goal — to build a community that cares passionately about using technology to make the world a better place. And that has the wherewithal to do something about it.

Also stay tuned right here on Medium, where we’ll be posting a selection of our thinking on technology, journalism, economics, and society.