Our mission is to shape long-lasting, sustainable change that fundamentally amplifies our human capabilities and raises our collective intelligence

I believe that 30 years from now, people will look back at the beginning of our century and wonder what we were doing and thinking about big, hard, long-term problems, particularly those of basic research. They will read books and articles written by us in which we congratulate ourselves about being innovative. The self-portraits we paint today show a disruptive and creative society characterized by entrepreneurship, start-ups, and big company research advertised as moonshots. Our great-grandchildren are certain to read about our accomplishments, all the companies started, and all the money made. At the same time, they will experience the unfortunate knock-on effects of an historical (by then) famine of big thinking. Nicolas Negroponte, Founder MIT Media Lab

We are stuck in a rushing standstill

We’ve never had more money for innovation, we’ve never had more knowledge about technology, and we’ve never had more anticipation about the next big thing. A bit fancier, a bit faster, a bit more digital. Yet at the same time we’re failing to solve some of the most fundamental questions on the planet.

The famine of big ideas

On the surface, things look pretty good: The rise of robots and the dawn of superintelligence. Quantum computing, automation, and cryptocurrency. The Metaverse and Internet of Things. Brain–machine interfacing. Autonomous vehicles, and even autonomous weapons. It’s easy to congratulate ourselves about being innovative, within a disruptive and creative society.

But we need to be honest.

We hail companies, and prolific individuals, for living up to the hype, rather than solving urgent problems. What do we want to do with all these fancy technological solutions, if we haven’t even addressed the big challenges of our time? Climate change, environmental and species protection, hunger, inequality — the list is long.

Putting the pieces together

Big ideas transform our world, our society, our thinking, and our actions. Many of the good ideas we need might already exist, but they are pieces of an unfinished puzzle. You might have one piece of the solution, and someone on the other side of the planet has another piece.

In fact, the road to big inventions and innovations was never linear. Our history has always been about the connections between disciplines, locations, and time. Just think about Johannes Gutenberg being a goldsmith, Alexander Graham Bell being a teacher for deaf people, or the Wright brothers being bicycle mechanics. Everything is connected. But if the link has not been noticed, nobody realizes it is a puzzle piece that belongs in the solution.

If those ideas find each other in ten years, they’ll have an impact, and make a difference in our lives, but if we can help those ideas find each other this year, the impact will be so much more. And what if those ideas never find each other? Technology has such potential to make us smarter and more capable, and today, and every day, so much of that potential is wasted.

Co-Co-Co-Creation: People, Culture, and Technology.

The main issue is that most big ideas come from the gaps, and bridges, between our individual boxes of thinking: you’re working on an idea inside your box, and you don’t know what ideas might exist inside another box, where other people are working on their own ideas. Some might have exactly the same idea, or a different take on your idea, or the missing puzzle piece you didn’t realize your idea needed.

Unlimited Co-Creation is the key — not only to problem solving, but also to enabling humanity to do things that were previously impossible. Collaboration and Co-Creation between people, culture, and technology.

The world isn’t zero-sum: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Humanity is a group of individuals succeeding together, not despite their differences, but because of them.

Our future depends on us coming together to build those big ideas.

Join us

Big Idea Initiative is all about making connections, and sharing knowledge, thoughts, and ideas that support deep thinking and collaboration. Our goal is to create a space that sparks thinking and conversations among people whose ideas might benefit each other, even if they’re working on completely unrelated topics. We think that pushing back the limits of possibility will come as a result of the connections that diverse collaborators make together. Identifying these connections will bring the big ideas our world needs.

Help us create a platform for innovative exchange.
Help create the big ideas our world needs.
We start here and now. Join us.

What’s your big idea?