Requests for Collaboration

This is a rough, unordered list of themes and ideas I'm interested in contributing to. I expect them all (individually and collectively) to make the future more exciting and good. If you're working on any of these or they pique your interest, please reach out!

• Regenerative Capital Architecture - Designing financial instruments that systematically channel capital toward regenerative outcomes. How do we create investment vehicles that make ecosystem restoration more profitable than extraction? Working on commons-oriented exit strategies, regenerative debt instruments, and institutional frameworks that align financial returns with planetary health.
• Physics-Native AI Development - Building AGI that understands causality and physical laws, not just language patterns. This means hybrid intelligence systems combining biological neurons, neuromorphic hardware, and symbolic reasoning — architectures that compute the way physics actually works, not just approximate it statistically. Seeking partnerships with physics labs, materials scientists, neuromorphic engineers, and anyone working on causal inference beyond transformer architectures. The goal is intelligence that can reason about the physical world with the efficiency and robustness of biological systems.
• Neuromorphic Chip Architectures - The hardware race for brain-inspired computing is accelerating. Intel's Loihi 3 (4nm, 8M neurons, 64B synapses) introduces graded spikes that bridge SNNs and DNNs. IBM's NorthPole delivers 25x energy efficiency over GPUs for inference. BrainScaleS-2 runs analog neuron emulation at 1000x biological speed. BrainChip's Akida targets real-time edge processing. IEEE P2800 is standardizing benchmarks in 2026. Interested in collaborating on next-gen architectures, novel compute substrates, and getting neuromorphic chips out of the lab and into production systems.
• Spiking Neural Networks & Neuromorphic Software - The biggest bottleneck isn't hardware — it's software. Training SNNs requires entirely different frameworks from PyTorch/TensorFlow. Surrogate gradient methods have closed the accuracy gap on benchmarks like CIFAR-10 and ImageNet, but the tooling is immature. Intel's Lava framework, Norse (PyTorch-based), SpikingJelly, and Brian2 are pushing forward, but we need better abstractions, debugging tools, and deployment pipelines. Looking for collaborators building the developer experience that makes neuromorphic accessible — the "CUDA moment" for spiking networks.
• Event-Driven Sensing & Neuromorphic Perception - Event cameras (Dynamic Vision Sensors) output asynchronous per-pixel brightness changes instead of frames — 100x less data, microsecond latency, 120+ dB dynamic range. Prophesee is leading commercially. Combined with neuromorphic chips, this enables sub-5ms sensory-action loops for robotics, autonomous vehicles, drone navigation, space situational awareness, and XR wearables. The full stack — event sensors + spiking networks + neuromorphic hardware — is the path to truly real-time, low-power embodied intelligence. Seeking collaborators in robotics, autonomous systems, and sensor fusion.
• Biological Computing & Organoid Intelligence - Cortical Labs grew biological neurons on silicon and taught them to play Pong. This isn't science fiction anymore — it's a research program. Organoid intelligence, wetware computing, and hybrid bio-digital architectures represent a fundamentally different path to computation: systems that learn, adapt, and self-organize the way biological tissue does. The questions are massive: How do you program living neurons? How do you scale it? What are the ethics? Looking for neuroscientists, bioengineers, and ethicists who want to push this frontier responsibly.
• Autonomous Economic Protocols - Developing self-governing economic systems that operate without traditional institutions. How do we build protocols that automatically allocate resources, manage risk, and optimize for regenerative outcomes? Interested in AI-driven economic coordination, automated yield optimization for public goods, and decentralized resource allocation mechanisms.
• Implementation Courage Infrastructure - Creating support systems for regenerative experimentation. How do we build 'failure funds,' experiment networks, and commons protocols that help communities try alternatives without perfect plans? Seeking collaborators to develop institutional courage frameworks and regenerative prototyping methodologies.
• Post-Extractive Business Models - Pioneering business models that serve life rather than just profit. How do we design companies that regenerate their contexts while remaining economically viable? Collaborating on B-Corp evolution, regenerative supply chains, and business practices that embody the future we want to live in.
• Systemic Transition Methodologies - Developing practical pathways from extractive to regenerative systems. How do we navigate the 'implementation gap' between systemic analysis and real-world transformation? Seeking collaborators on transition finance, commons governance, and institutional metamorphosis at multiple scales.
• Consciousness Technology Ethics - Ensuring advanced AI development serves consciousness rather than replacing it. How do we build superintelligence that enhances human agency and planetary wisdom? Interested in AI alignment through embodiment, consciousness-preserving automation, and technology that deepens rather than diminishes our humanity.
• Bioregional Resilience Networks - Building economic and ecological resilience at bioregional scales. How do we create networks of regenerative enterprises that serve specific places while connecting globally? Seeking collaborators on bioregional currencies, place-based innovation ecosystems, and distributed manufacturing for community resilience.
• Heliogenesis - Harnessing the boundless energy of the sun, Heliogenesis unveils a blueprint for regenerating the planet and reinventing humanity's relationship with it, igniting a global shift towards a heliogenic civilization where nature-inspired solutions and advanced biotechnologies harmonize seamlessly to create abundance and prosperity for all.
• Revolutionizing Economic Incentives - In a world where the urgency of climate change cannot be overstated, recalibrating economic incentives towards technology-driven solutions emerges as a beacon of hope for a sustainable future.
• Privacy-oriented software - Private money, messaging, computation, and storage. Importance of privacy will become even more obvious with brain-computer interfaces and personalized AI models. Sequence and secure your own genomic data.
• Regional corporations - Mondragon is an 80,000+ person network of industrial co-ops in the Basque Country that makes $13B every year. The TVA was set up to modernize and revitalize the Tennessee Valley via electricity and other technologies. RUPCO was created to house Hudson Valley residents. More companies should pick a community and make regional prosperity part of their mission.
• Longevity - Contemplating longevity, I'm drawn to the idea of thriving as we age, not just adding years. It's about embracing science, optimizing lifestyle, and living vibrantly for decades.
• Ultra-low GWP refrigerants and recycling - The only non-flammable, non-toxic, ultra-low GWP refrigerant is CO2, but it's very high pressure and has a low critical point. What's a synthetic alternative with 0 GWP and 0 ODP? Is it safe to de-regulate use of propane as a refrigerant? Increase recovery/recycling rate of existing high-GWP refrigerants.
• Engineering-focused Waldorf education - I went to a Waldorf School from K-8. It was great. Can we do Waldorf with more of an engineering track? Less eurythmy, more shop class and physics.
• Anti-prep high school - Trade schools, flexible graduation criteria. What does high school look like if it's not trying to get kids into prestigious colleges by getting good grades and padding their resumes?
• Farming beyond food production - Farms as community hubs, rural third spaces. Incentivize agriculture that is good for the land—tree crops and silvopasture. Fund and celebrate plant breeding programs for extra diversity and regional resilience. New land conservation organizations.
• Prestigious, specialized, non-linear adult education - Kids should not wait until they have a college degree to start working, and we should go to college more than once. I want a high quality place to go learn complex, academic topics (synthetic bio, atmospheric physics, etc) without thinking I'm going to waste time or money. More intellectual than bootcamps or trade schools. It should be routine to spend a year in school every 5-10 years to focus on learning a new domain.
• More optimistic sci-fi - Reading solarpunk sci-fi has changed and crafted my worldview for the better. Positive visions for the future in sci-fi are still rare. More climate fiction. Multimedia, sci-fi beyond film and books. Public imagination is self-fulfilling. Get more government officials reading and referencing sci-fi.
• Adaptation/refugee tech - Climate change will force widespread migration. What are the best ways to prepare for and facilitate mass movement? Incredibly cheap housing, high quality mobile homes, microgrids, fast agriculture, remote work.
• Ultra rich teachers - Teachers should be rewarded based on the success of their students, ideally without the adverse selection problem of ISAs. Maybe a pot of money that is distributed to teachers according to the relative performance of their students. Avoid creating a popularity contest and figure out how to heavily reward the highest impact teachers. Teachers are essential to a rapidly changing world that forces adaptation and learning new things.
• Geoengineering - Let's accept the fact that humans have permanently altered the atmosphere and start using our influence for good instead of pretending we only have the power to destroy the planet. Fund research for solar radiation management, glacier geoengineering, ocean fertilization, carbon mineralization, and more.
• Bioelectricity in regenerative medicine - Michael Levin's research explores how electrical signals can guide tissue regeneration, offering new possibilities for healing without invasive procedures.
• Biomimicry in design - Nature and technology, inspiring innovative design solutions. Her projects span various fields, demonstrating the potential of biomimicry to create sustainable and resilient environments.
• Industrial labs and public research - More publicly-funded, non-academic researchers. Lots of labs to bring research into practice. More climate-focused industrial labs.
• Cryptographic identity - We should have far wider reaching usage of cryptographic keys in everyday software, especially for authorization and proofs of digital content or activity. More secure than user-entered passwords and easier for developers.
• AI-enabled simulations for social science - Run large-scale simulations using LLMs instead of conventional economic agents. Emergent, chaotic models for human behavior. Create synthetic versions of real populations by prompting LLMs with demographic info and backstories (read Generative Agents paper).
• Hire and elect user researchers and engineers in government - Especially on a local level, government efficacy seems to depend on understanding your community, assessing needs, and designing good systems. Government programs need better UX, and on the local level we should hire more full-time employees and depend less on volunteers. More agencies and task forces, fewer committees.
• Rural, walking-friendly districts - Rural communities should encourage dense, walking-friendly housing developments. More eco-districts, like Freiburg.
• AI capable of deep work - AI agents capable of extremely sophisticated software engineering, financial research, and new scientific discoveries. Train for reasoning and creativity.
• Agrivoltaics - Co-locate solar and agriculture. Calibrate solar panels to provide beneficial shade to crops. Encourage farms to become food and energy producers.
• AI models that use computers - Train AI models to use UIs designed for humans. We're using self-driving cars without building new roads, so we should be able to automate all computer work without creating APIs for every piece of software. Conversely, we should have more software designed just for AIs.
• Advancements in Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) - BCIs represent a frontier in human-computer interaction, enabling direct communication between the brain and external devices. Neuromorphic chips are uniquely suited for BCIs — their event-driven, spike-based processing maps directly onto neural signal patterns, enabling real-time decoding with orders of magnitude less power than GPUs. The convergence of neuromorphic hardware, biological computing, and BCIs could yield interfaces that don't just read brain signals but speak the brain's native language. Interested in the full stack: neural signal acquisition, neuromorphic processing, and closed-loop stimulation for prosthetics, cognitive augmentation, and therapeutic applications.
• More Requests for Collaboration - A few friends have written similar documents, and they're always a joy to read and think about. More people should think expansively about what they're excited to pursue and write it down.