This project has been supported by the National Science Foundation: NSF SciSIP 0738187. Principal Investigator: J. Doyne Farmer; Co-PI: Jessika E. Trancik.

Gravatar Béla Nagy is a quantitative futurist, trying to understand, model, and forecast technological progress. He designed this database to document the historical trajectories of different technologies in a wide range of industries. He'd love to hear your ideas about how to take this experimental prototype to the next level by building a Web 2.0 community, facilitating collaborations between different research institutions, think tanks, and other parties in the private and public sectors interested in technological innovation. In his previous lives, Béla has been a software architect (SCEA), an artificial general intelligence (AGI) researcher, and a fast Bayesian (FBI). In his next life, he wants to be a psychohistorian.
Gravatar Encryption Award winner Bjørn Swenson is our chief software developer and web designer and he welcomes your comments and suggestions about the implementation details of our website. In his spare time, he likes to build supercomputers to factor large numbers, design computer games, and learn new programming languages. Soon, he'll be going off to an Ivy League school (or better) and conquer the world.
Gravatar John Paul Gonzales is our principal database administrator, ensuring consistency and providing much needed quality control. He's also a talented data hound, skilled in tracking down obscure citations in the scientific literature and hard-to-find documents in remote libraries. His other passions include science education through Project GUTS and the Supercomputing Challenge, computer simulation and applied complexity approaches to solving real-world social problems. He is involved with the Madrona Institute studying complexity-based solutions to national and international conflict. In his free time, he likes to improve his knowledge of the world through lectures at the Santa Fe Institute.
Gravatar Quan Minh Bui is a student at St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Initially trained in math and physics, he got interested in our project and started as a data analyst, processing raw data uploaded to our web site. Now he's studying statistical forecasting and hindcasting procedures and building tools for assessing the historical prediction accuracy of the different methods. He is now looking forward to transferring to a top college that has a strong math and science program. He is also interested in Artificial Intelligence and skilled in C, C++ and Java.
Gravatar Irene Lee is the Principal Investigator for Santa Fe Institute's Project GUTS. She's been a tireless recruiter and inspirational team builder for our project! In past lives she was a game designer, software developer, and project manager. Currently she strives to connect students with projects that are both inspiring and exhilarating.
Gravatar Nick Bennett is a systems architect, designer, and developer with Grass Roots Consulting in Albuquerque, NM. He's designed and developed decision support, business process management, and online learning tools for a wide variety of clients including Kraft Foods, Bank of Scotland, CitiBank, General Motors, AT&T, Trans-Alberta Power, Cementos Mexicanos, and others. He's also committed to math, science, and IT education, and has worked in a number of educational programs sponsored or co-sponsored by the Santa Fe Institute. He's advised us from the very beginning and we continue to rely on his wisdom and unmatched technical expertise to steer us in the right direction.
Gravatar As the leader of the IT Group at SFI, Nate Metheny has been instrumental in setting up our database and website (and keeping it running, too! :) He was trained in classical violoncello performance and attended Indiana University for solo performance studies. Nate has been using computers since the age of 5 and has held full-time positions in Information Technology since the age of 16 after his early graduation from high school at age 15. Nate has worked on the computing infrastructure at the Santa Fe Institute since 2004 and prior to that worked for several start-up companies in and around the Santa Fe area since his move back to New Mexico in 1998.
Gravatar ← This is a placeholder for your picture! Wherever you are in the world, you're welcome to join our team as an unpaid volunteer in this ambitious effort to build bridges between different nations and different disciplines. Your geographical location, educational level, age, etc. are no longer a barrier in the age of the Internet. Are you interested in learning about scientific research? Or would you like to develop technical skills in webdesign, databases, or data analysis? Béla would love to tell you about current opportunities. Furthermore, if you are ready for a serious, ongoing time commitment, then you may be interested in becoming an official SFI intern. If you are an undergraduate, you may also want to apply to the REU program, or if you are a grad student or a postdoc, then you may want to come to one of our Summer Schools.