Get on the Forefront of Advancing Human Flourishing
What Is Your Contribution To Human Possibility?
By 2030, depression is expected to be the leading cause of the global disease burden (World Health Organization). What are we, as humans, doing to prepare?
At Transformative Tech Lab, we believe that technology-enabled products and services should not only help prevent many mental and emotional health challenges, but also contribute to advancing human flourishing.
Most people would probably agree with that, but many who want to contribute still have lots of questions — how do we think about mental and emotional wellbeing in the context of tech applications? How do we approach building tech for human flourishing — even if we don’t have a technical background?
Introducing TTA Challenges
That’s why at this year’s Transformative Tech Academy (a free online development program), we’re introducing mini-competitions to encourage and support Academy members to ideate products and services to improve human wellbeing in 3 specific areas:
- 21st Century Flourishing
- Mental and Emotional Wellbeing
- Future Human Potential and Performance
We’re calling these mini-competitions TTA Challenges.
Why Are TTA Challenges Important?
- TTA Challenges will allow people who are not yet sure what they’re going to build to explore 3 focus areas that are vital, have an excellent market opportunity, and are a great place to start.
- They will give participants a chance to get to know other people in the Academy cohort because participants can work together in these projects.
- They will give participants a chance to connect with world-class experts in these areas. Some of those mentors are impossible and/or expensive to book on your own, so this is an exclusive opportunity!
- Top companies & ideas will be able to present at the Transformative Technology Conference in November… and put their ideas in front of investors!
Are you getting excited?
Transformative Tech Academy is open to anyone interested in this space — it’s online, free, and truly global, with over 1,000 participants from 69 countries participating last year!
Join this incredible community and apply today before applications close on August 23rd: http://ttacademy.co/apply/
Quick note:
TTA Challenges are NOT a mandatory part of Transformative Tech Academy. If you already have a product/company you’re working on, simply apply with it — you’re going to get tremendous value out of the program. The Challenges are in place for people who are still ideating and need guidance with their ideas.
Now, let’s zoom in on each of the focus areas and explore what they are about.
FOCUS AREA 1: 21st Century Flourishing
The idea of human flourishing includes full emotional, psychological, and social flourishing. That’s more than just “healthy” — that’s above the line. It’s when you’re emotionally, psychologically, and socially connected, and you feel TRULY alive.
Flourishing in the 21st Century will require more than basic skills for psychological health.
For example, rather than just emotional health, we will need emotional intelligence. Thriving at work or at home will be about developing the cognitive, emotional, and social fluency required to be creative, adaptable, collaborative, and a problem solver.
Ultimately, flourishing is about moving from humans do-ing to humans be-ing by developing the self-awareness, empathy, trust-building and connection skills that are truly human.
What would a flourishing society look like? What might we create if most people could experience positive emotional, psychological and social functioning?
The TTA Challenge in this focus area seeks to stimulate the creation of tech companies to make key elements of flourishing widely accessible.
- Inside: Self-Awareness & Meaning Making
- Outside: Compassion & Empathy
- Together: Trust-Building & Connection
CHALLENGE 1: Compassion as 21st Century Essential Skill — The CCARE Challenge
Compassion doesn’t just make the world better; it also has many positive effects for your health and wellbeing which have been scientifically proven.
A sample question in this Challenge would be:
- How might we radically accelerate the development and expression of human compassion, meaning, and deep connection for millennials in a way that aligns with their values so that they can find and express their passion and authentic self?
We have an outstanding mentor in Dr. James Doty, Director and Founder, CCARE and Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery, Stanford University. Dr. Doty’s recent text book, The Oxford Handbook of Compassion Science, is a great resource.
Learn more:
Relevant links and resources in this Challenge:
https://health.ucsd.edu/news/topics/compassion/qas/Pages/institute.aspx
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=36&v=KpkSsZ73EzY
FOCUS 2: Mental and Emotional Wellbeing
Going forward, everyone will need another set of skills — specifically the skills for mental health, emotional health, connection, happiness, sleep and stress resilience. What many people don’t realize is that, barring a major disorder, these skills are to some extent trainable, which means that technology can play a role in scaling the support, knowledge and tools to make these skills and services more widely accessible.
We like to think of these as FUTURE BASICS, meaning we envision a future where everyone has the ability to start out learning and accessing what they need in order to have mental and emotional wellbeing. While this won’t instantly shift the externalities like income or climate, we believe this serves as a foundation for health, connection, and better decisions overall in an era of massive change.
The TTA Challenge in this focus area seeks to stimulate the creation of tech companies to make mental and emotional health scalable.
- Assessment & Services
- Prevention — Crises
- Intervention — Proactive
CHALLENGE 2: Mental Fitness as a Life Skill — The Brandon Marshall Challenge
Just imagine what it would mean to have on your phone the things to teach people to be resilient and have mental fitness in advance?
We have the true need to develop these skills in people in advance; not only so that they don’t have issues, but so that they can contribute what they are here to contribute to the human race, and have a flourishing life.
A sample question in this Challenge:
- How might we turn the tide of mental health issues for Millennial and Gen Z in a way that teaches mental fitness skills in advance?
Learn more:
Relevant links and resources in this Challenge:
https://bigthink.com/mind-brain/mental-health-life-skill
https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/publications/how-to-mental-health
https://www.nami.org/Find-Support/Living-with-a-Mental-Health-Condition/Managing-Stress
FOCUS 3: Future Human Potential & Performance
We believe that Human Potential and Performance is far beyond what we see as the norm today.
Imagine a world, where FUTURE BASICS and 21st Century Flourishing Skills of cognitive, emotional, and social fluency alongside creativity, adaptability, and collaboration were common. The next step would be to push on our cognitive, physical, emotional, and social capabilities — and discover what is truly possible.
Curiosity, exploration, connected-ness, and purposefully living our lives could become our work and our contribution to humanity. What might we create together? What is truly possible if supporting the human mind positively became the goal of technology itself?
Challenges in this area seek to stimulate the creation of tech companies to enhance and expand human cognitive and emotional abilities and work and beyond.
- Enhancing Cognitive & Emotional Abilities
- Expanding Human Senses & Physical Abilities
- Amplifying Collaborative Abilities @ Home or @Work
- Leveraging built and natural spaces for cognitive and wellbeing enhancement
CHALLENGE 3: Workplace Wellness — The Spaces & Places Challenge
Humans spend 80% of their time indoors. It’s always a good idea to increase the time we spend outdoors, but for that time we spend indoors, it’s possible to turn that time and those experiences into transformative technology.
If you think about the Internet of Things, there are many things, but very few are focused on psychological wellbeing and the actual mental and emotional state of people. People in this TTA Challenge will be able to look at all the studies in this space, think about the Internet of Things, and ideate on how to create the Internet of Better Things.
A sample question in this Challenge:
- How might we ensure employees have a healthy work environment that primes them for high performance and wellbeing in a constantly changing world so that every employee has the tools that they need to express their full potential?
Learn more:
Relevant links and resources in this Challenge:
https://stok.com/research/financial-case-for-high-performance-buildings
Thriving Cities: How to Define, Apply, and Measure Well-Being at Scale
Jackie is currently a PhD student in positive organizational psychology at Claremont Graduate University. She works in systems-level well-being research, evaluation.
CHALLENGE 4: Enhancing Human Cognitive Performance
Many modern neuroscientists think about cognition as INclusive of emotions. So it’s not just thinking, but it’s the full scope of human capacity that constitutes cognition, including emotions.
People in this challenge will work on ideas for using technology to enhance cognition.
A sample question in this Challenge:
- How might we unlock the cognitive and emotional capacity of humans in a way that cultivates deeper authentic collaboration so that every person has an opportunity to express their unique contribution?
Learn more:
Relevant links and resources in this Challenge:
https://www.transformativetech.org/podcast#
Join TTA 2019
If these ideas excite you, if you want to contribute to human possibility, apply for Transformative Tech Academy and meet the best community and expert support in the world in this space. The world needs your ideas.
Apply today 👇(Applications close on August 23rd, 2019)
