Story is the code for humanity’s operating system. We’ve used stories to communicate knowledge, prescribe behavior, and imagine our futures since our earliest days. Story and narrative are how we design everything from the technology we invent, to the social systems we implement, to the norms in which we perform our identities, to perhaps the mutations of our very DNA. Stories we tell now will write the next operating system for humanity. Are we making a reality we want?

We are in a fundamental disruption to human communication akin to the disruption of mass media 500 years ago. However, this is not just another expansion of scope, scale and efficiency, it is one that results in systems that can independently think, exist in every object or structure, and integrate with our bodies. It is the most complex, abundant and dynamic communication and information system in human history. How will we use this infrastructure to make stories that make our reality? Who will make these stories?

Future Architect, Kamal Sinclair, shares insights from a two year research project on equality in emerging media commissioned by Ford Foundation’s JustFilms in partnership with Sundance Institute’s New Frontier program.