I’ve never been very good at living in the present…

Even as a kid, my thoughts were always elsewhere, not in a distracted way, but in the search for what comes next. Star Trek for me wasn’t just entertainment, it was a glimpse into something possible. It showed me that technology, when guided, could reshape entire societies, and I knew I didn’t just want to witness that future coming my way, I wanted to help build it.

That instinct stayed with me growing up. Over the last decade, I’ve worked across emerging technology, helping startups craft strategy around blockchain and AI, and consulting at a government level on how to leverage innovation to enhance people’s lives and protect critical national infrastructure. Whether the work was experimental or deeply practical, the focus was always on how we use technology to solve real problems while staying in touch with the values we care about.

Writers like Greg Egan, Ray Kurzweil, and Michio Kaku shaped the lens through which I watched the world. They explored new technologies and how those technologies would impact consciousness, identities, and cultures. Greg Egan’s "Permutation City" in particular challenged my assumptions about intelligence and the nature of self. It made me consider what happens when we replicate the mind, and whether simulated experience can ever be truly human.

Over time, people started calling me a futurist. It’s not a label I set out to earn, but I’ve come to understand what they meant. I tend to see things a few steps ahead. I can’t predict outcomes, but I ask questions that most people postpone. What happens when machines become our primary conversational partners. What happens when logic drives every decision and emotion gets filtered out? What happens when progress forgets to include people? The future isn’t something distant. It’s already in motion. And if we don’t participate in choosing its direction, someone else will.

TECHNOLOGY AS MAGIC, PURPOSE AS ANCHOR

Arthur C. Clarke said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I’ve never stopped chasing that feeling. But magic on its own isn’t enough. It needs purpose. Without it, we are just building impressive tools that drift without meaning.

With Kaiko, we are bringing both together. Yes, we want people to feel something when they interact with our technology, to be surprised, even moved. But we also want that experience to be grounded in something human, ethical, and real. As human to machine interactions begin to outpace human to human ones, design has to protect our emotional fabric. If systems aren’t emotionally aware, if they don’t understand context, nuance, and tone, we will adapt to them instead of asking them to meet us where we are.

That is why purpose matters, not as a slogan but as a design principle. Our decisions are guided by whether they strengthen human connection and emotional intelligence. If they do, we lean in, even if it is hard or doesn’t scale perfectly. We work on SEI so that technology strengthens, not replaces, human empathy and bonds.

CORE MESSAGE AND ADVICE TO BUILDERS

If we allow ourselves to build without asking what we are shaping in the process, we do not just risk irrelevance, we risk harm. And in a world where machines are becoming more present in daily life, we cannot afford to build without intention. Progress is never just technical. It is emotional, cultural, and philosophical. When we create something new, we are not just solving a problem. We are teaching people how to relate to the world and to each other.

So here is the message I hope stays with anyone building today. Technology does not need to reduce us to numbers. It can elevate what makes us human. But only if we choose to build with care. Only if we include ethics in design, empathy in performance, and respect for emotional depth in innovation. Not everything needs to scale. Not everything needs to be optimized. But everything we put into the world carries weight. It either preserves something essential or slowly erodes it. It brings us closer or pushes us further apart.

If you are starting something now, the first question to ask is not how, it is why. Why should you be the one to build it? Would the world lose something meaningful if you walked away? If the answer is yes, that is where you begin.

And if we do this with intention, if enough of us choose to build with care, meaning, and connection in mind, we may not change the world overnight. But we can shift its trajectory by even half a degree. Over time, that shift compounds. What begins as intention becomes impact. What starts as care becomes culture and, maybe, the future we are heading toward will still feel like home.