Innovation beyond technology.

Economic activity is not an end in itself. It is a means of meeting human needs and organizing the resources required to live together.

Yet many of our economic systems are built around assumptions of continuous growth, increasing consumption and the maximization of financial returns.

I am interested in exploring alternatives.

This includes ideas from Buddhist economics, the concept of Right Livelihood, human-scale economics, sufficiency and post-growth thinking.

The work of E. F. Schumacher, particularly Small Is Beautiful, has been an important inspiration in this direction. So has The Limits to Growth, which challenged the assumption that unlimited economic expansion can continue within a finite world.

I am also interested in the ethical foundations of business leadership, including the principles discussed in Vocation of the Business Leader, a reflection on the responsibilities of business from the perspective of Catholic social teaching.

These traditions come from different intellectual and spiritual backgrounds, but they raise related questions about the purpose of economic activity, human dignity, responsibility and the common good.

I am exploring how these ideas can inform contemporary entrepreneurship and practical business models.

I do not believe that purpose-driven organizations need to reject business principles or financial discipline.

A nonprofit organization can generate revenue, operate commercially and even create a surplus. A social enterprise can be financially successful. A cooperative can compete in a market.

The important questions are what the organization exists to achieve, how it creates value, how it distributes the benefits and what happens to the profit it generates.

Profit can support resilience, reinvestment, fair compensation, community development and the long-term fulfillment of an organization’s mission.

Rather than treating profit as something inherently good or bad, I am interested in understanding how it can become a tool in service of a meaningful purpose.

The development of artificial intelligence and automation is changing the way organizations operate.

I believe resisting these changes altogether is neither realistic nor particularly useful. The more important challenge is to shape how these technologies are used.

Automation can reduce repetitive administrative work, simplify organizational processes and make it possible for smaller teams to operate more effectively.

For nonprofit organizations, social enterprises and mission-driven businesses, this could mean spending fewer resources on administration and more attention on the purpose they exist to serve.

But efficiency alone is not enough.

We also need to consider the environmental and material costs of digital technologies: energy consumption, computing resources, hardware lifecycles and the infrastructure behind seemingly immaterial services.

This is why I am interested in approaches such as permacomputing, resource-efficient computing, repairability, durability and technologies designed with material limits in mind.

Responsible use of AI is not something that technology companies can solve on our behalf. It is a responsibility shared by the people and organizations that develop, choose and use these tools.

I do not see innovation as the pursuit of novelty for its own sake.

The question is not simply whether something is new, faster or more scalable.

The question is whether it helps us create something more useful, meaningful, resilient or responsible.

This is the perspective I want to bring to my entrepreneurial work, research and collaborations.