A Journey from Risk to Flourishing

I have always felt most at home bridging worlds. Having lived and worked across cultures, disciplines, and ways of seeing, my journey has taken me from exploring digital trust and risk to asking a broader question: what helps people, communities, and societies truly flourish? Along the way, I have been fortunate to pioneer emerging fields, build new ideas, and work across boundaries. Risk and flourishing are indeed two sides of the same coin, and they are both about understanding, protecting and nourishing what we truly value.

Curiosity and Creation

My childhood was shaped by an unusual freedom: the freedom to follow curiosity wherever it led. I spent my time moving between code, technology, logic, creativity, literature, imagination and art. I started programming at the age of twelve, yet I was equally captivated by drawing, design, and the creative process.

What I did not realise then was that these were not separate pursuits. They were different expressions of the same question: how do we create? That question has guided my journey ever since, from technology and economics to the exploration of human flourishing.

Building Trust in a Digital Age

As the internet transformed the foundations of society, I became interested in a fundamental question: how do we create trust in a world that increasingly exists online? This question led me into the emerging field of cloud computing and cybercrime investigation, where my research contributed to the development of cloud forensics. Over the following years, I worked with researchers, industry leaders, and public institutions to help strengthen the security and resilience of the digital infrastructure upon which modern life increasingly depends.

From Protection to Possibility

Over time, my attention shifted from preventing harm to enabling potential. I became increasingly interested in a larger question: what should technological and economic progress ultimately be for? This inquiry inspired the creation of the Happiness Foundation and continues to guide my work as Co-Director of the AI & Flourishing Program at Harvard University. Drawing from economics, technology, psychology, philosophy, and the arts, I explore how we might design systems that support not only efficiency, but also meaning, wellbeing, connection, human flourishing, and true prosperity.

Understanding Value and Risk

The deeper I explored technology, the more I realised that our economic frameworks had not kept pace with the digital age. Data, software, algorithms, and networks had become some of the world's most valuable assets, yet we lacked the language and tools to fully understand their value and risks. This led me to develop the field of risk economics, bringing together biology, finance, economics and digital systems to explore how societies can make better decisions in an increasingly interconnected world.

Flourishing as a Shared Future

Today, my work is centred on one of the defining challenges of our time: ensuring that humanity flourishes alongside its technologies. As artificial intelligence reshapes how we live, work, learn, and create, we are being invited to rethink what progress means. I believe the future will not be defined solely by the capabilities of our machines, but by the wisdom with which we choose to guide them. My work seeks to contribute to a future in which innovation serves life, and where technological advancement is measured not only by what it achieves, but by what it helps humanity become.