Throughout our history as humans, there have been people, ideas, and societal efforts that have fundamentally transformed our nature as societies. These are what we term Progress Engines.

From the adoption of new legal codes and changed social freedoms that range from the birth of democracy to the universal vote and bills or charters of rights and freedoms, there have been many moments that highlight the concept of progress engines.

Right now, in today’s increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (V.U.C.A.) world — as the term was coined by the U.S. Army War College in 1987 — we need to cultivate and develop progress engines as never before. To prepare ourselves for the challenges of tomorrow, we need to scale up connections between talented and passionate people, great ideas, and design efforts that can reshape society for the better.

Unfortunately, there are many constraining forces of tradition, social fragmentation, and those who would retrench our societal efforts to “old ways” of thinking and acting, attempting to undo some of the very fundamental components of societal progress that contributed to the best of today’s world.

Progress engines, by our definition, have a generative dynamic behind them. Once initiated, they have a basic propulsive force that is hard to stop. But that doesn’t mean they’re perpetual motion machines: like any engine, they need to be maintained, refueled, and periodically re-tuned to continue working at peak performance.

Want some examples? Visit our Initiatives page to see a few of the Progress Engines that we’re currently working with.

Tell us what you’re thinking by using the comments feature, and we encourage you to connect with us if you want to be part of our journey.