Curriculum

  1. Futures Studies & Forecasting
  2. Policy, Law & Ethics
  3. Finance & Entrepreneurship
  4. Networks & Computing Systems
  5. Biotechnology & Bioinformatics
  6. Nanotechnology
  7. Medicine, Neuroscience & Human Enhancement
  8. AI & Robotics
  9. Energy & Ecological Systems
  10. Space & Physical Sciences

Technology and Advisory Teams:

1. Futures Studies & Forecasting:

Singularity University is a profoundly and uniquely futures-oriented institution. Its very purpose is to identify and use exponentially-accelerating technologies to create better conditions for everyone on Earth; to heal and nurture the planet itself; and to guide humanity as it reaches beyond the limits of Earth and of humanity’s historical evolution on Earth. It is the mission of the Futures Studies and Forecasting Track to help see that this positive futures-orientation is foremost in everything we do by presenting, discussing, critiquing, and infusing the theories and methods of futures studies throughout the curriculum and in all SU activities. Ray Kurzweil, Paul Saffo, James Canton, and Jim Dator–futurists who have had years of practical, applied, as well as academic experience in futures studies–serve as co-chairs of this track.

TRACK CHAIRS & ADVISORY (Futures Studies & Forecasting)

  • Co-Chair: Ray Kurzweil, Founder, Kurzweil Technologies, Inc.
  • Co-Chair: James Canton, CEO and Chairman of the Institute for Global Futures
  • Co-Chair: Jim Dator, Prof & Dir of the Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies
  • Co-Chair: Paul Saffo, Visiting Scholar in the Stanford Media X research network
  • Advisor: Jerome Glenn, Director, The Millennium Project
  • Advisor: John Smart, Founder & President, Acceleration Studies Foundation
  • Advisor: Peter Bishop, Associate Professor, College of Technology, University of Houston
  • Advisor: Will Wright, Creator: SimCity, Spore; Founder, Maxis (Electronic Arts)

2. Policy, Law & Ethics:

This track will examine the role of government, law and ethics in dealing with the implications of the technologies covered in other tracks, including reinventing patent law, the patentability of concepts developed by AI, nanotechnology, and biotech/biomedical research; the future legal status of AIs, robots, cyborgs, and non-terrestrial resources and possible off-Earth civilizations; dealing with cybercrime and possible AI manipulation of financial markets; preventing risks from unfriendly AI, nanotech, and genetics; negative scenarios (surveillance, police states, etc.); the precautionary principle vs. the proactionary principle; policy and legal issues of environment crisis, and ethical issues around anticipated human manipulations, brain enhancements, AIs, self-replicating nanotech, brain uploads, cryogenics and re-animation. The track will also consider the promises in addition to the perils: what are the downside risks if we do not develop certain kinds of biotechnology, AI, or nanotech?

TRACK CHAIRS & ADVISORY (Policy, Law & Ethics)

3. Finance & Entrepreneurship

The exponential growth of technology, while most visible in the fields of computing and the sciences, has had an equally dramatic effect on every facet of the business world. From the long tail reverberations of virtual goods, through the outsourcing of every aspect of creation and production, to the explosive development of personal brands and the potentially culture-changing introduction of micro-finance, the approaching Singularity is revolutionizing our global economic system. This track will begin in the first trimester with a rapid trip through the dramatic changes in business already caused by accelerating technologies, include an introduction to business structures and principles, provide tools and insights for monetizing the new technologies, and culminate with cross-track workshops on both the Essence of Entrepreneurship and Presentation and Communications Skills. During the second trimesters, topics that will be covered in collaboration with other tracks include understanding the new workforce and personal branding, private financing of space travel, the economics of knowledge, green financing through carbon ‘cap & trade’, virtual market economics, microfinance and the concept of money as information. A field trip to the Google campus as well as special guest lectures and hands on case studies will help Fellows come to grips with the immediate, real-world effects of high velocity business in the age of the Singularity.

TRACK CHAIRS & ADVISORY (Finance & Entrepreneurship)

4. Networks & Computing Systems:

Calling on the rich resources of leading-edge companies and academics in Silicon Valley, this track covers the explosive growth of computer power and networks, focusing on three key revolutionary areas: (1) Emerging and future computational and storage technologies, including 3D molecular computing, nanocomputing, DNA/RNA computing, plasmonics, spin storage, memristors, optical storage, photonics, quantum computing, pico- and femtotechnology, and autonomic computing, addressing important issues such as reversible computing, the limits of information representation, scalable computing systems, and future petascale and exascale supercomputers; (2) Future user interfaces, such as augmented reality, virtual reality. virtual worlds, blended reality, virtual agents, bots, lifelogging, breakthroughs in computer graphics, holographic and 3D displays, teleimmersion, telepresence, haptic interfaces, personalized learning, and extracting knowledge from massive volumes of data via data analysis, data mining, and information visualization; and (3) Intelligent networks, including nth-generation Internet, smart search engines, the semantic Web, smart grid, shared vs. dedicated Lightpath Internet, cyber-physical systems and sensor networks, security and privacy vs. transparency, mobile and location-based computing, cloud computing, Interplanetary Internet, ubiquitous wireless networks and ubiquitous computing, mesh networks, adaptive networks, embedded networks, and the global physics grid.

TRACK CHAIRS & ADVISORY (Networks & Computing Systems)

  • Co-Chair: Bob Metcalfe, General Partner, Polaris Venture Partners
  • Co-Chair: Kevin Fall, Principal Engineer at Intel Research Berkeley
  • Advisor: Vint Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist, Google Inc.
  • Advisor: Chris DiBona, Open Source Program Manager, Google Inc.
  • Advisor: Daniel Ford, Senior Mathematician, Google Inc.
  • Advisor: Larry Smarr, Dir, CA Institute for Telecommunications & Information Tech

5. Biotechnology & Bioinformatics:

This track covers the exponential growth in biotechnology and bioinformatics, focusing on four areas: (1) genome technologies (genomics and proteomics, ultra-rapid, low-cost gene sequencing, and statistical and computational extrapolations of large biological databases); 2) Personalized medicine (4P medicine: personalized, predictive, preventative, participatory; high-speed, full-genome, consumer-based sequencing; personal SNP analysis and ethics); (3) Intelligent design (ultra-rapid, low-cost DNA writing, selective gene manipulation/substitution, ethics of germline modification, RNA interference); and (4) Microfludics and single-molecule technologies.

TRACK CHAIRS & ADVISORY (Biotechnology & Bioinformatics)

  • Chair: Daniel Reda, Co-Founder, CureTogether
  • Advisor: Aubrey de Grey, Chairman & CSO, Methuselah Foundation
  • Advisor: David Haussler, Professor, Biomolecular Engineering, UC Santa Cruz
  • Advisor: Andrew Hessel, Founding Director, Pink Army Cooperative
  • Advisor: Stuart Kim, Professor, Developmental Biology, Stanford University

6. Nanotechnology:

This track will cover the science, technology and potential future capabilities of nanotechnology, including: (1) Fundamental scaling laws and their limits. (2) The nature of atomically precise structures and computational chemistry. (3) Current and proposed manufacturing technologies including: lithography, self assembly, DNA nanotechnology, positional assembly, Scanning Probe Microscopy, mechanosynthesis, molecular positional devices, self replicating systems, molecular nanotechnology (MNT) and nanofactories. (4) Molecular computing, molecular logic elements, carbon nanotube electronics and thermal limits in computing. (5) Medical nanorobotics and nanomedicine, life extension and cryonics. (6) the impact of nanotechnology on space, energy production and storage, national security, green manufacturing, environmental remediation and other areas.

TRACK CHAIRS & ADVISORY (Nanotechnology)

  • Co-Chair: Robert Freitas, Jr , Sr Research Fellow, Inst for Molecular Manufacturing
  • Co-Chair: Ralph Merkle, Sr Research Fellow, Inst for Molecular Manufacturing
  • Advisor: J Storrs Hall, Pres, Foresight Inst; Author, Beyond AI & Nanofuture
  • Advisor: Neil Jacobstein, CEO, Teknowledge; Media X Prog, Stanford Univ

7. Medicine, Neuroscience & Human Enhancement:

This track will explore the future of biomedicine, neuroscience, and human enhancement and its impacts on human health and performance in six areas: (1) Stem cells and regenerative medicine: the emerging ability to repair, replace and regenerate damaged, aged, or diseased tissues utilizing cell therapies, therapeutic cloning, pluripotent stem cells, tissue engineering, biomaterials and artificial organs. (2) Targeted therapies, including minimally invasive medical devices, designer drugs, identification and targeting of cancer stem cells. (3) Medical diagnostics and imaging: increasingly powerful and rapid imaging modalities, point-of-care medical diagnostics, and biomarker technology. (4) Neuroscience: neuroprosthetics (artificial retina, cochlear implants, brain-computer interfaces, deep brain stimulation), neuroplasticity, and direct fMRI functional brain imaging/scanning. (5) Wellness: preventative drugs, supplements/antioxidants/diet, proactive regimens, Internet-based medical informatics, and telemedicine. (6) Human enhancement: exoskeletons, robotic limbs, neuroenhancing pharmacological agents, gene therapy, and anti-aging strategies.

TRACK CHAIRS & ADVISORY (Medicine, Neuroscience & Human Enhancement)

8. AI & Robotics:

This track focuses on intelligent machines. The main topics are: (1) Introduction to intelligent machines: perception, actions, representation, reasoning, learning, dealing with uncertainty. (2) AI technology: efficient exploration of state space, planning, logical inference, probabilistic inference, representation languages, machine learning, and language understanding. Alternative approaches for producing artificial general intelligence (AGI) or strong AI. (3) Robotics technology: hardware systems (sensors, manipulators), mobility, localization and mapping, human-robot interactions, multi-agent systems, autonomous vehicles, scaling to micro- and nano-machines. (4) Applications in home, transportation, medicine, security, internet, entertainment, space, and other areas. (5) Future directions: technology trends, solving the hard problems. AI ethics, potential for runaway AI, friendly vs. unfriendly AI. Uncertainties concerning when computers will match various capabilities of the human brain. Will computers become conscious?

TRACK CHAIRS & ADVISORY (AI & Robotics)

  • Co-Chair: Neil Jacobstein, CEO, Teknowledge; Media X Prog, Stanford Univ
  • Co-Chair: Raj Reddy, Prof of Computer Science & Robotics, Carnegie Mellon Univ
  • Advisor: Ben Goertzel, Founder, Novamente; Dir of Research, Singularity Inst
  • Advisor: Jason Lohn, Senior Research Scientist, Carnegie Mellon University
  • Advisor: Dharmendra Modha, Manager, Cognitive Computing, IBM Almaden
  • Advisor: Peter Norvig, Director of Research, Google Inc.
  • Advisor: Sebastian Thrun, Prof of Computer Science, Director AI Lab at Stanford

9. Energy & Ecological Systems:

This track will cover future breakthroughs in renewable energy production, including solar, wind, ocean, geothermal, biological, and nuclear; grid 2.0 & transmission systems; energy storage technology & systems, including fuel cells; efficient transportation systems; energy conservation & efficiency, energy for the developing world; the Earth as an environmental system, including climate models and strategies and geoengineering; and global catastrophe scenarios and existential extinction events (asteroids, biowarfare, gamma ray bursts, nuclear war, etc.) and survival, prevention, and mitigation strategies.

TRACK CHAIRS & ADVISORY (Energy & Ecological Systems)

  • Co-Chair: Sunil Paul, Founding Partner at Spring Ventures
  • Co-Chair: Michel Gelobter, Founder, Cooler Inc; former Pres, Redefining Progress
  • Co-Chair: Dan Whaley, Founder and CEO, Climos
  • Advisor: Dan Kammen, Co-director of the Berkeley Inst of the Environment
  • Advisor: Claire Tomkins, Project Manager: Gigaton Throwdown

10. Space & Physical Sciences:

Calling on the extensive research and instructional resources at NASA Ames, this track will explore (1) The future of space, including future launch and propulsion systems (lasers, space elevators, ion engines, solar sails, fusion drives); nanosatellites; orbital satellite systems for communications and Earth and remote sensing; energy sources such as Helium-3 from the lunar regolith, solar-powered satellites; asteroids and comets as sources of metals, minerals and fuel. (2) Cosmology (including dark matter and dark energy and fundamental structure of matter); astrobiology and the origin of life on Earth and elsewhere; SETI and communication with extraterrestrial life; computronium (converting matter to a computational resource); and spreading intelligence to the universe.

TRACK CHAIRS & ADVISORY (Space & Physical Sciences)

Team Design Project:

The Team Project for SU’s Graduate Studies Program (June 27th -Aug 29th 2009) is the centerpiece of the curriculum where students are given a challenging, interdisciplinary, and real world problem that exemplifies one of humanity’s grand challenges. 2009’s Team Project is called, 10^9+ (ten to the ninth, plus) where students will be asked how they can impact 1 Billion people, worldwide, in a positive way, in 10-years time leveraging accelerating technologies.

At the end of the 9 week summer session, students will present their results before a panel of individuals composed of representatives from private and public industries. They will also launch a website and other deliverables to serve as a launchpad for practical solutions and continued international dialogue related to various aspects of the problem.

  • Co-Chair: Lauren Fletcher, Engineer, Astrobiology, NASA Ames Research Center
  • Co-Chair: Keith Kleiner, Associate Founder, Singularity University

Technology Advisory Board:

The purpose of Singularity University’s Technology Advisory Team is to provide the University with ideas and guidance for the support and implementation of software tools for education, outreach and social media. In essence, the team strives to keep Singularity University at the cutting-edge of computer-based information systems, particularly online social networking and media applications.

Media Advisory Board:

Singularity University Media is producing a feature documentary for theatrical and broadcast distribution, and a series of short documentaries for online distribution. We are also recording lectures and panel discussions for DVD and online release. SU Media is run by former Technology Producer and Web Strategist at Charlie Rose, Matt Rutherford.