calling us home.

personal transformation

the UFI is an invitation to slow down, to meet in sanctuary, and to critically review how the current systems (of power) are present in each one of us. we need the courage to show up for profound inner work to address our limiting beliefs steeped in the current status quo. otherwise we constantly run the risk of accidentally reinforcing the logic of the very systems that we are trying to transform.

collective transformation

we cannot step into the uncertain futures we long for without healing the dynamics that brought us to crisis. doing this alone carries an inherent danger, feeding the individualistic tendencies of this world, and the notion that we are separate from each other. there is no “do it yourself” on this path - we need community to support and challenge us.

systems transformation

you can’t know it. you can’t plan it. you can’t predict it. like all life, it is emergent. it weaves. it grows underground and underwater before it spores. what experimentation is needed for breakthroughs in how we relate to ourselves, to each other, and to other? what does the laboratory for this look like? how do our learnings move beyond the initiated few? there are enough speculators - it’s time to become the lab.

 

deeply diverse participants

  • Each cohort is composed of 20 participants. In its constitution we pay particular attention to ensure majority representation by population groups to whom such programs are usually inaccessible. Which is why each cohort will have a Collective Basic Income at its disposition that it can redistribute among its members to ensure equal participation.

  • the intention for year 1 and 2 is for the cohort to get to know themselves and each other. to deepen their system awareness and begin their personal and collective transformation. it’s a time to slow down, look inward and at each other.⁵ the intention for year 3 is to offer the space for the cohorts to turn all of their insights into prototypes for a human quantum leap.⁶

    the UFI’s hosting team will tightly design the first 6 months of this journey and then begin to gradually open the space for the participants to actively co-create content and experience. by year 3 the intention is that the hosting team only serves the cohorts with logistical support so as to ensure full self-reliability and sustainability beyond the end of the 3 year exploration within the UFI.

a lab
for t-systems

  • There currently seem to be no limits to the amounts of resources, talent and hope we are willing to put into the development of (digital) technology. Automated machine learning (often mistakenly hailed as “artificial intelligence) is beginning to rule and dominate important aspects of our lives. It’s no dystopia that humans work for robots, it’s our present-day reality. Millions, if not billions of people, are heeding to social media algorithms, bluntly tricked into squeezing more and more screen time out of themselves and their “friends”.

    As a consequence, our attention spans are collapsing¹⁰, we are becoming more polarized¹¹ and losing our “human judgment”¹², while our IQs and ability to hold complex thoughts are diminishing¹³. Paradoxically, as the “intelligence” of “AI” is soaring, we can witness human consciousness rapidly declining in parallel. It does not take a PhD to see the rampant risks in this situation with ever more wicked challenges facing humanity.

    The UFI’s mission is to prototype the stories for investing into a shift in human consciousness that are as captivating as building “a space shuttle to mars” or “the next tech unicorn”. In one of our unlikely futures, human collaboration technologies become as relevant as all other forms of tech as we know them today, and just like mixed-species flocks, humans will soar together with machines in a deep alliance to serve life¹⁴. This requires honing our capacity for being present, for listening, for complex thought, feeling and imagination ~ weaving together the best of healing, arts and tech.

a 3-year collective learning journey

  • transformaton-systems (t-systems) comprise all those initiatives nudging, shifting and disrupting a status quo system – anything from an issue like healthcare to a geographic area like a watershed – in a similar transformational direction.⁷ ⁸ these efforts may operate alongside a status quo system, such as the zero-carbon energy subsidiary of a traditional energy company.

    but t-systems are focused on change and innovation, compared with the status quo’s emphasis on production and amelioration of the toxic effects of the static systems.⁹ the lab serves our participants as the sandbox in which to run the experiments that will inform them in how to build groundbreaking t-systems across issues, areas and time zones.

a shift
in consciousness

an experiential education

  • …or teachers who have been there before. given the pace at which our world is evolving, any static sources of knowledge fall short of preparing us for the times we live in.¹⁵ we need to learn through experience¹⁶, which means daring to prototype our uncertain futures and evolving in the process. this happens best in community, sharing our insights, offering reflections, support and challenge to each other as we step into the unknown together.¹⁷

  • the UFI’s mission is to create safe and bold containers for radical experimentation with personal, collective and systems transformation. this requires investing in co-resonant fields¹⁸, where the participants deeply belong and relate to each other. in addition, we need elevated collaboration skills to be able to deeply listen to each other. this process is accompanied by a rigorous scientific monitoring, evaluation and learning system that is adapted to the ongoing evolution of our social innovation research.¹⁹

  • every six months the cohorts gather for 10 days in nature for a deep dive. the main driver of transformation is their willingness to show up for each other and what they are learning on their explorations. the initial focus will be on creating trauma-informed shared language, agreements and containers that empower everyone to participate fully. special focus will be put on the skills and support structure needed to step into a liberatory experience for all. this will take time and that is what we are here for.

  • like the moon, our heartbeat or waves, our meeting cycle follows the rhythm of a sine curve. in the months leading up to and following a retreat the cohort will meet more regularly online to attune and prepare, respectively debrief and integrate. for each cycle of 6 months, which begins and ends in integration silence and a break from communication and communion, and peaks with a retreat, the cohort will meet for a total of 6 times for 4h on each occasion. these moments include break-out groups, reflection exercises and multiple forms of participation.

  • the cohort gets sub-divided into pods of 3 that allows the participants to go deeper at a smaller scale with each other. the intention is to create intimacy and consistency through weekly calls that allow the participants to check in with each other on a weekly basis. it’s a space to regularly practice vulnerability, sharing mistakes and learnings, and offering challenge and support to each other.

  • each participant will get to select from a wide array of partner organizations through which rabbit holes they would like to investigate system transformation. we want to invite them to go to the edges, to the underground, to the outliers and forbidden, because that is where we are most likely to discover what we are too comfortable to see. we will explore partnerships with the leading researcher institutions on topics such as death, sexuality, power, faith, wealth and extraordinary states of consciousness, to explore the unexpected rabbit holes to system transformation.

on system transformation

  • the field of social change is characterized by individual solutions competing with each other for scarce resources such as funding, media attention or political platforms. silo-thinking and ego-attachment prevents us from collaborating in the ways required to reach the kind of scale of impact needed by our times.

  • the UFI prepares the participants for their role as transformation catalysts and teaches them how to:

    1) see and map systems

    2) sensemake of meta-narratives, governance & organizing systems, change capacity, evaluation approaches, innovation processes, approaches to financing and resourcing)

    3) connect & catalyze t-system actors and activities

    this includes learning how to identify, describe and test deep systems challenges, different types, drivers and transformation strategies, as well as how to design pathways to transformation and their correspondent transformation activities.²⁰

  • the UFI’s mission is to contribute to the emergence of the system transformation sector by testing new sets of nature-inspired design principles and starting hypotheses²¹ that go beyond planned, incremental change. our labs are dedicated to equipping our participants with powerful collaborative practices across initiatives, strategies and actions working in a similar direction, to foster the emergence of a generation of transformation catalysts.

    “Transformation catalysts act catalytically by aggregating, cohering and amplifying actions of transformation initiatives and change-makers working towards fundamental socioecological systems” ²²

  • Our linear understanding of time and space, as well as our attachment to historicity creates a real poverty of imagination when it comes to our future.²³ From science over politics to Hollywood, we are sold on a techno-dystopian future where life on planet Earth is on the brink of extermination. This creates a negative feedback loop for how we relate to ourselves in the present. No wonder we are estranged from our roots and disconnected from our futures.

  • neuroscientific research has shown that our ability to sympathize with future victims of climate change encourages sustainable behavior.²⁴ similarly, there is plenty of empirical evidence for how our subconsciousness interacts through visual, auditory, olfactory and tactile stimuli with the plant world. Science is now aware of modes of thinking proper to plants.²⁵ not to mention recent studies at Johns Hopkins University showing how psychedelics profoundly alter our perceptions of consciousness altogether.²⁶ how does this impact how we imagine our unlikely futures?

  • The UFI’s mission is to decolonize our memory, to recuperate our innate sense of belonging to this biosphere²⁷ and to take back the power over our uncertain futures. We are excited about the emerging field of ancestral futurism, combining the best of what modern sciences are discovering at the edge of their research and the profound teachings guarded by the keepers of unbroken lineages of ancestral wisdom traditions.²⁸