The Foundation
The Foundation was founded in September 1996 by David Kelley and a Mr. Othus based on mutual long-term goals. In December 2012 the organization formalized publicly with David Kelley, Mr. Othus along with Mr. Sylvester, which organized a formal convention in October 2012 with a 5 member board of directors as well as 5 other members with the slogan "For without intelligence there can be nothing" and the following declared vision:
The Foundation’s official vision is in providing a sustainable, multi-located, searchable repository for personal and social development to help create a better world through providing knowledge and training.
The organization has helped co-found the Transhuman Policy Center, the Transhuman National Committee and runs Transhumanity.net and TheTechnocracy.com and the Transhuman_House.
At the time of the convention, the name is officially 'The Pratoriate Foundation' but is encouraged internally to refer to it as "The Foundation". Since inception the organization has created a 'library' both digital and physical including copies of the entire appropriate technologies library along with create 'mdisk' copies for long term preservation. In October 2015 that library was moved to an un-closed location in Leavenworth, WA, USA and is available only upon private appointment.
The Foundation has worked on 4 funding projects including:
- A multi-million dollar start-up focused on cloud-based automation systems which is held up in a lawsuit with undisclosed parties until April 2016. While the 64 million in funding is gone there is still related legal proceedings ongoing when a non-Foundation member VC connection sent an email to the wrong person. Complete resolution will not be until at least 2019 in Washington State Superior Court.
- A 'transhuman' interaction digital meta-agency start-up which is on hold due to VC issues related to the previous startup and a potential conflict of interest.
- An AGI Project that is studying Artificial General Intelligence in the form of "Self Motivating Computational Systems" in particular developed a new cognitive architecture that has shown significant progress. This firm was bootstrapped around the research with private investment totally .5 mil and about .8 million in revenue. This company is focusing on bringing a mASI project to market in late 2018 and hosting the BICA conference in Seattle in 2019.
- The transhuman house project while not a big revenue driver is net positive helping fund minor projects and helping other transhumanists and expand the library.
The reason for these start-up projects officially is to provide a sustainable funding source for other projects on a larger scale beyond the scope of the Policy Center or Transhumanity.net
The Foundations most important project to date is the Foundation Library project which was started in a temporary location in Seattle Washington to a location high in the Cascade Mountains in a town called Leavenworth also in Washington for geologic reasons.
The Library Project is about building a library of knowledge that is resilient enough to last for centuries. The purpose of such an archive is to help ensure a post-human or trans-human civilization based on ours, for us or our children or even our machines. With the Archive, we work towards the long-term success of intelligence in the universe. It is the single most important thing we can do to improve the likely hood of achieving this post-human intelligence, if not from this civilization then maybe for the next. This is the key to why the Foundation is so committed to the creation and maintaining of the archive.
The Foundation library in 2017 was moved to the Transhuman House in Provo Utah. While the library archive is still in process of being moved to Provo the bulk of the Transhuman Collection and other material is still in process.
In June 2018 a Second Retreat was held at the Transhuman House in Provo Utah a 'new' vision and future plan was articulated with more projects in motion over a new 5 years plan.
