Across industries and academia, in mainstream and social media, wherever human beings convene and converse — discussions are unfolding about the profound impact and potential of an evolving array of high-tech capabilities. From ubiquitous Internet access and its influence on human communication and relationships, to artificial intelligence, bioengineering, and quantum computing — poised to transform everything from business to education to healthcare — we are experiencing an unprecedented wave of tech driven change, a ”Fourth Industrial Revolution.” While tech insiders and tech users alike are pondering technology’s influence, few if any forums exist for exploring the most profound and complex questions about technology’s impact on what it means to be human. At Santa Clara University, such topics are the domain of the human spirit — the place in each of us where questions of identity, meaning, purpose, and human interconnection dwell. In Jesuit philosophy, cultivating spirit is as essential to human flourishing as knowledge and invention, as safety and access to essential resources. If we are to steward technology to its highest good, shouldn’t spirit be part of the conversation — and an inspiration for action?

As the largest comprehensive faith-based university in the San Francisco Bay Area, with an extensive alumni community in the technology industry, SCU is at home with the myriad and complex questions surrounding innovation. We have the mission — informed by a Jesuit heritage of courageous cross-cultural encounter and bold inquiry — the intellectual resources, and the interdisciplinary platform required to convene an inclusive and intrepid examination of technology’s impact and promise. And soon, we will have a unique forum through which to engage partners in this important work.

Through the Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education — the enterprise committed to full human flourishing across and beyond the SCU community — SCU is launching a one-of-a-kind initiative that will engage a diverse array of partners in conversation, reflection, and action at the intersection of technology and the human spirit. While other major universities — Stanford, Harvard, and MIT among them — have begun to examine the ethical ramifications of technology’s proliferation, the inquiry SCU convenes will transcend ethical and technological considerations to explore the full spectrum of human flourishing: Mind, body, and spirit. Together, we will pursue questions at the very heart of our humanness: In the midst of this Fourth Industrial revolution, what does it mean to be fully human? And who, as technology creators shaped by our own creation, are we becoming?

Bringing together intelligence, research, and concern for the future of individuals and societies, this endeavor will convene technology thinkers, makers, and users in exploring the impacts of innovation. With participants including industry leaders, experts in the human sciences, scholars and theologians, and people of faith and all convictions, this forum will provide the opportunity for challenging, fruitful discussions, and for networking not only among specialists but also across points of view, experiences, and backgrounds. It will also serve as the launch pad for a comprehensive SCU initiative that will perpetuate collaboration, innovation, and radically deep, long-term thinking.

If you agree that technological innovation should be informed by perspectives that acknowledge human flourishing in all its dimensions, we invite you to shape, support, and partner in this initiative. Together we will stimulate thought, affirm or question established consensuses, seek a more complex understanding of how technology affects humanity, and envisage opportunities in the landscape of technological change.