Radically Human Technology: Enhancing Connection and Wellbeing (Or Finding your Ikigai Kairos )
Why I’m teaching a Transformative Tech Class at Stanford in January (Wellness 160)
I believe that we stand on the threshold of a new era of Human Flourishing. Leveraging tech to support mental health, emotional wellbeing and human thriving will be key to create an abundant future that is More Starfleet, and Less Hunger Games.
To have abundance, we will need to put out the fires of the human mind, get the skills in place for social and emotional health, and unlock the bonus levels of human cognition. It won’t be easy or without dangers, but we have little choice — the state of the Human Mind is the keystone for all other issues. We don’t fix climate change or complete the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals without solving the Cognition Crisis or elevating human consciousness.
I’m optimistic — need, demand, and means have finally converged. Our mission is to help elevate 2 billion people to flourishing by 2050. A lever of this size would elevate the Human Mind globally as it takes approx 25% of a population to start large scale social change per a study at UPENN.
Serving 2 billion people requires technology to scale, business to sustain, and entrepreneurs and innovators to experiment, explore, and invent new human centered tools. Hence our focus. But I also have a sense of urgency — we don’t have a great deal of time. This work must be well underway prior to the massive shift in work driven by automation so that seismic change brings in an age of freedom rather than social destabilization.
I consider myself to be double-fortunate. I’m sitting at the center of my Ikigai at a Kairos moment. This means that I’ve found what the Japanese believe to be the secret to a long and happy life — work at the intersection between my passion, mission, profession, and vocation. And I’ve found this work at a moment where perhaps everything can change. Due to finding my Ikigai-Kairos, I wake up every day clear about how my work and my life right now ties into the overall human story. I know what I’m here to do, build and create. I can see the impact potential. I’ve watched the relevant exponential tech curves and every day see more indications of progress.
I mention this because starting next month I’ll be co-teaching a class on Transformative Tech at Stanford. I’m excited to serve some of the brightest young minds in the world.
Our goals are two-fold:
- Help students with their personal growth, success, and flourishing
Amazing new tools are being created every day to help people not only perform better, but also flourish in their lives. We’re going to introduce these to students so they can explore tools that can have a lasting impact and discover what’s possible for them. I love working with young people and these young people in particular are so full of possibility that I cannot wait.
2. Help students explore a way to have a massive positive impact on the world
We’re going to help them explore Transformative Tech as a way to have a scalable impact on global human flourishing. Clearly, I’m biased, but I think this sector can be their Ikigai Kairos too. If you read any of Deloitte’s major studies on global youth, you’ll know that they want careers with meaning and they want to solve the world’s problems at work. Often young people feel confined to traditional opportunities like social media, drug discovery, management consulting, finance and similar areas that are well-known and scaled but aren’t necessarily rewarding. Later, many people who take these paths leave them to do work that has more meaning for them.
Transformative Tech provides both from the start — potential scalable reach and massive impact on human flourishing. We’re going to help students identify and understand the opportunities that exist in established Transformative Tech companies as well as help them make progress ideas for building new tech companies dedicated to expanding and enhancing human wellbeing. My goal is to help them envision what would inspire them professionally in Transformative Tech and then make progress on making it so!
Given the acceleration in the Transformative Tech sector, I have many opportunities on how I can spend my time — but I am delighted to be a lecturer to teach this class for the following reasons.
1.Working with some of the most promising minds of this generation. I’m curious and excited to see what they will come up with. The Future of the Human Mind is going to require Team Human — people from every age, experience, around the world, in order to find the tools that support a diverse humanity.
2. Developing a college curriculum merging a business/tech class with personal flourishing (and hopefully more Ikigai Kairos). We recently ran a global pre-seed and seed stage online Academy for entrepreneurs and innovators. We had participants from over 60 countries and over 400 cities. This course adds to that know-how for people who haven’t yet made the leap. Eventually, I’d love to see Transformative Tech programs in universities around the world.
The students will get a significant amount of my time and focus so if you know a Stanford student who would love this class, please make sure that they know about it. They can register here.
If you want to have access to the material we create for the class, sign up to our newsletter here. www.transtechlab.org
_________________________________
Course Description
Explore the present and future relationships between technology, humanity, and the search for happiness & flourishing. Investigate and develop the core questions, concerns, ethical considerations, and broad implications of technologies that shape human culture and consciousness. Course draws from science and technology studies, contemplative science, neurophenomenology, positive psychology, biomedical engineering, central nervous system stimulation, and neurofeedback. Evaluate the latest tech, interact with luminaries in the field, and rapid-design your own consumer tech concept, start-up idea.
Course Objectives
Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to:
1. Understand and develop perspective on the defining questions, theories, and initiatives in the emerging Transformative Technology space.
2. Identify the relevant technologies and research including biofeedback, neurofeedback, bio and neuro stimulation, wearables, apps, VR, games, etc.
3. Explore the relationship between the desired outcomes from traditional wisdom/contemplative approaches and modern tools.
4. Explore prevailing theories, and develop a personal perspective, on the role of technology in the evolution of human experience and culture.
5. Create personal design principles, and conceptually design a novel Transformative Technology (or make progress on your Transformative Technology start-up idea!)
The “Why” of this Class
The purpose of this class is to equip you with the latest thinking and technologies to support your personal growth, success and flourishing, as well as to help you explore building transformative technologies and companies as your way to have a massive positive impact on the world.
Our world is experiencing tremendous social, political, economic, and technological change. Navigating this change requires that we ask the right questions and address the deepest human needs. Where human thriving, psychological wellbeing, and resolving fundamental questions of meaning or what it truly means to be human might once have been considered luxuries — they will be a requirement for the future of society, work and human consciousness. The universality of this requirement suggests a key role for technology that is scalable, accessible, affordable, ethical, and human centered.
Over the last few years we’ve seen major advances in science and technology that reveal even more of the human mind, body, and how it can interface to broader society and the world in ways that help all of us to thrive. We’ve also seen how tech can have less desirable consequences on the social fabric and human connection. What is the path forward to a future where tech truly supports human flourishing and exponential wellbeing? While no one knows exactly — through this class you’ll connect with a global community to thoughtfully envision, iterate, and build it.
