The Institute is the collective intelligence of Humanity 2.0. Its primary purpose is to inform and direct Humanity 2.0's efforts; specially those related to addressing impediments to human flourishing.

Its secondary mission is to update the Human Flourishing Framework with new data and insights as they become available.

Project Vision

Overview

Project Vision is a Humanity 2.0 effort specifically designed to provide the roadmap needed in order to accelerate human flourishing.
Project Vision has three objectives:

01

Formulate a common vision for humanity that communicates the kind of human civilization we should be striving to build.

02

Identify the most significant impediments to realizing this vision.

03

Triage these impediments in order to provide a roadmap for action.

Objective

Formulate the Vision
Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.
- Joel A. Barker
With the arrival of a truly global age, the human institutions that we have come to rely on are struggling to address global challenges and seize opportunities.

We are motivated by a desire to align human interests in order to provide greater focus in our effort to accelerate human flourishing.
To this end, Project Vision’s first task is to articulate a vision for the kind of global civilization we should be striving to effect. Without a clear vision and sense of mission, building the necessary solidarity and collective will required to transform civilization will be a near impossibility. Moreover, without a clear vision or picture of what kind of civilization we want to effect, we would be unable to credibly identify or agree on the impediments to realizing it.

This ‘vision’ for humanity will be developed by a leading body of experts representing many scholarly, religious and philosophical perspectives.

Objective

Identify the Impediments
Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.
- Dale Carnegie
With the work of a new vision completed, the task then becomes one of identifying the impediments to realizing the vision and ensuring they are addressed in the most effective ways available.

Humanity 2.0 first seeks to understand what the most significant impediments to human flourishing are so that we may more intelligently focus our efforts and resources. Ignoring this important work would be tantamount to thrusting a person into an arena with a hydra in which one endlessly strikes at its heads, but never succeeds in vanquishing it.
We must strike at the underlying causes of civilizational stagnation, the heart, so to speak, if we are to succeed.

A committee of philosophers, historians, and anthropologists will lead the effort of identifying the key impediments to human flourishing. Once their initial list of impediments is prepared, it will be handed off to a scientific committee that will analyze and validate their philosophical assertions by referencing available data and scientific insights.

Objective

Triage the impediments
When you have too many top priorities, you effectively have no top priorities.
- Stephen Covey
To plan an effective strategy for addressing the most significant impediments to human flourishing, priority must be assigned to them. Currently, organizations and institutions work to identify and understand the world’s most important problems, but this is unfortunately where the work typically stops. Governments, NGOs, businesses, and individuals are then left with the responsibility of determining which problems to address and how. This results in diminished outcomes, as a plethora of approaches and a broad dispersal of resources are deployed. Humanity 2.0 seeks to know through both quantitative and qualitative analysis what the most significant impediments to human flourishing are so that we can focus our efforts and bring to bear sufficient resources to effectively address them. Moreover, this insight will be shared with the global community so we may collectively take action.

Most global challenges that beset the world are simply too big for any one sector to solve; our focused, cross-sector, global strategy will allow us to change that.

In addition, the global institutions and techno-economic infrastructures (financial markets, social media, etc.) needed to solve these complex challenges are losing legitimacy with the general public. Our thesis for this decline in legitimacy: these institutions and corporations are built on incomplete models of human flourishing. In addition, the centralization of power and wealth has created further divides between global leaders and local communities. Our aim is to use a collaborative process to restore this vital reservoir of trust so that institutions can enroll and coordinate collective action to tackle these impediments. The more complex the challenge to human flourishing, the greater the need to utilize the principles of enablement and empowerment:global leaders serving national leaders - serving local leaders - serving the relational prosperity of individuals.

Triaging the impediments will provide Humanity 2.0 a clear priority of work moving forward. Moreover, this focus year to year will afford the Humanity 2.0 team the ability to be highly selective in the partnerships it leverages to ensure maximum impact.

Metrics and Data

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.
– Sherlock Holmes
Aggregating data and developing unique metrics will be one of the most significant contributions of Project Vision to Humanity 2.0 and the wider world.

Identifying and triaging impediments to human flourishing will require considerable amounts of data and the development of unique metrics and methods to understand this data. The Humanity 2.0 team will develop these metrics in collaboration with our partners, and the needed data will be solicited from institutes and organizations around the world.
The most significant output from Project Vision will be a system for determining the most critical problems and a method to assign priority to them.

Institutional Partners

No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.
- H.E. Luccock
Humanity 2.0 plans to collaborate with a number of academic and institutional partners to carry out the work of Project Vision. Some of the resources that will be requested of our partners include:
  • Subject matter experts
  • Data scientists
  • Access to information and raw data
  • Administrative support staff
  • Academic networks
In exchange for the valuable in-kind contributions of our partners a work-sharing protocol will be developed so that the advances made by Humanity 2.0 may benefit and enrich partners. Moreover, our partners will be officially listed and acknowledged on promotional materials and at Humanity 2.0 events.

Primary leadership and research administration of Project Vision will be overseen by the Thomistic Institute, based at the Pontifical University of Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome, Italy.
It isn’t all over; everything has not been invented; the human adventure is just beginning.
- Gene Roddenberry

Project Legacy

The fruits of Project Vision will be many, but the most important fruit is a clear vision of the kind of civilization we humans should be striving collectively to create. We will develop the Human Flourishing Framework as a set of analytical and conceptual tools that will be used to ensure that humanity can maintain sharp focus on tackling the impediments that keep us from realizing this vision. In this way, the Human Flourishing Framework keeps humanity on the straight and shortest path to reaching our shared horizon.

In addition, the method for triaging impediments is a way of ensuring we assign appropriate gravity to impediments and then commit sufficient resources to overcoming them. Given resources are increasingly becoming scarce, this insight into how to optimize their use to ensure the greatest benefit to human flourishing is vitally important.
When Project Vision is complete, the Humanity 2.0 Institute will use the framework and data collected to determine year to year what specific impediment to human flourishing poses the greatest risk to advancing human flourishing and why. The Humanity 2.0 Foundation will then source solutions to this impediment with partners and then convene the human community in order to facilitate a commitment to action to address said impediment.

The Institute will also be constantly evaluating new data and welcoming intellectual insight to further strengthen the Framework and ensure it is relevant. In this way, as humanity evolves, so to does the Framework and our understanding of how best to realize our ambition of building a better world.

Use Cases

Project Timeline

  • Phase 1 - Complete

    Phase 1 had the following objectives:
    • 01: Research what constitutes human flourishing for individuals and civilizations according to different paradigms.
    • 02: Research what constitutes impediments to human flourishing for individuals and civilizations (on the levels listed above), according to different paradigms.

  • Phase 2 - Initiated

    Its primary purpose is to expand the research group to include new scholars and perspectives on the initial White Paper as well as explore the possibility of partnering with an academic institution towards the goal of producing a final version of the White Paper.

  • Jul
  • Aug

  • Phase 3 - Initiated

    The purpose of Phase 3 is to study the critique materials and integrate important insights into Vs2 of the White Paper.

  • Phase 4 - Initiated

    The purpose of Phase 4 is to validate the Human Flourishing Framework as outlined in the White Paper as well as the key impediments to human flourishing as stated through science and relevant data.

  • Phase 5 - Initiated

    Integration of scientific/data insights into Vs3/final version of the White Paper and subsequent publication.

  • Mar
  • June
  • Nov

Be part of the Evolution.

Rome  |  Valletta
info@humanity2-0.org

International Development

A country in the developing world has been struggling to provide basic social services to its citizens since a destructive civil war. With the war’s peaceful resolution, the President approaches business and political leaders to help her rebuild her country. As she rebuilds, she is looking for new, more holistic models of economic development that go beyond traditional measures like gross domestic product (GDP).

Her questions:

  • How does she go about evaluating comprehensively the State’s current ability to provide an environment in which its citizens may flourish?
  • How does she give her country a vision of an economy that leads to optimal human flourishing?
  • How does she determine the critical areas in the country in need of resources and human expertise in order to accelerate flourishing?
  • How does the government educate the citizenry and engage them in how to build a civilization in which they may flourish?
  • How can the government understand in what areas they are capable of addressing impediments to human flourishing and in what areas they will need external partnerships from NGOs, businesses, and the faith sector to rebuild local capabilities and expertise?
  • How does the government discern what organizations and problem areas are most in need of immediate intervention and which are not?

Humanity 2.0’s Human Flourishing Framework would be a tool for addressing all of these important questions, aligning her cabinet and building partnerships with international actors to rebuild her country.

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International Trade

A government leader works for a trade ministry of a government and is responsible for helping his country's international impact businesses find new opportunities for growth in foreign countries. To this end, the trade ministry leader analyzes countries using Humanity 2.0’s Human Flourishing Framework to determine the state of human flourishing within them. He then identifies the key impediments to human flourishing afflicting them. Once grasping these impediments, he looks at the portfolio of impact companies his country has to offer and then facilitates introductions between the impact companies and the respective countries in need of their services. By doing so, the leader advances the economic prospects of his own country’s businesses, while at the same time helps foriegn countries promote the flourishing of their citizenry.

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Finance / Investing

An analyst works for a prominent venture capital fund and is charged with identifying new market opportunities. The analyst was looking for a new tool in order to provide insight on unmet market needs and came across Humanity 2.0’s Human Flourishing Framework. Utilizing the Framework, the analyst was able to apply it to a particular region of his country and identify an impediment to human flourishing that was not being addressed by state or business actors. The analyst searched and found a startup that was doing groundbreaking work in addressing this particular impediment and recommended it to the partners. The VC fund partners decided to invest in said startup and facilitated an introduction to local leaders in the region in need, who openly embraced the promising solution, given the scientific and philosophical justifications provided by the Framework, and agreed to both help pilot and scale (if successful) the solution in their region. In so doing, the VC utilized the Human Flourishing Framework to identify a market opportunity; identify a company that could address the opportunity; and convince the beneficiary of both the opportunity and potential means to partner for impact.

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Think Tanks and Policy Research

A policy researcher with a focus on democratic legitimacy works for a think tank studying growing political apathy and voter disenfranchisement. Political leaders are interested in using the think tank’s research to help ensure their parties defeat of growing extremist, anti-democratic parties in the next electoral season. Polling and interview data indicates that the underlying feeling of voters is that the established parties are not discussing or addressing issues that really matter to the citizenry. The policy researcher decided to use the Human Flourishing Framework to analyze in which areas the state is underdelivering in services critical to advancing human flourishing. With this research, the researcher analyzed various party policy agendas and party campaign narratives to identify to what extent they are addressing these impediments to human flourishing. The analysis revealed a significant discrepancy between the established parties campaign priorities and what the citizenry needed to flourish. The think tank shared this research with grass roots and civic groups to promote policies that lead to political flourishing. Based on this new public awareness and support, the established parties developed new policies necessary for addressing these impediments to human flourishing, adjusted their campaign narratives, accordingly regained legitimacy and defeated anti-democratic parties in the subsequent electoral season.

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Health and Wellbeing

A university researcher was asked by the local government to determine why rates of depression and suicide have been increasing amoungst millennials. Using the Human Flourishing Framework the researcher was able to devise a number of analytic tools to review existing data captured on the demographic. What became clear is that there was very little data being captured on key determinants of human flourishing amongst this demographic. This insight was used to develop new quantitative and qualitative tools to capture quality data on these key determinants of flourishing. This new data provided a more comprehensive insight into what areas millennials ability to flourish was being impeded. The local government was then able to develop programs and policies to address these impediments to human flourishing and significantly reduce rates of depression and suicide among the target population.

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City Planning

An architect with urban planning expertise had been hired by the local government to design a 'city of the future', which would serve as a model for subsequent city planning efforts. The government's key directive was that the plan must be holistic and account for all conceivable dimensions of the health and wellness of the community. The architect had been studying the Human Flourishing Framework and decided it would be an idea tool for this city planning project given it's breadth and scientific and philosophical underpinnings. Using the Framework, the architect was able to design a city plan that uniquely integrated flourishing dimensions that set one's design apart from competing plans. Given this, the architects city plan was chosen by the government, improved community well-being and had long range impacts on subsequent city planning efforts nationally.

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Space Travel & Colonization

A medical doctor with space travel expertise was hired by the European Space Agency (ESA) to prepare a report on the requirements for human flourishing in special contexts like prolonged space travel or planetary colonization. Given the unique stresses of space travel and colonization on human health and wellbeing, the ESA wanted to ensure that every advantage to thrive is afforded to these persons. Given that the Human Flourishing Framework is based on insights spanning millennia and has been validated by modern science, it was the ideal tool to ensure that no critical aspects of human flourishing were overlooked in the report. The final report was able to identify a number of potential impediments to human flourishing that would have significantly affected the astronauts and colonists and so put their missions at risk. This insight allowed the medical doctor and the ESA to design a number of solutions that would address these impediments and therefore provide the astronauts and colonists greater confidence that they will thrive in this new frontier.

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