TL;DR
- Save the date: Progress Conference 2025 will be October 16 – 19 in Berkeley, CA. Speakers and more details to be announced this spring.
- Our team is growing! We’re excited to welcome Ben Thomas as our Event Manager.
Progress has been hard to miss this last year: self-driving taxis in multiple cities, AI agents coding apps from scratch, privately funded supersonic flight, longevity drugs for dogs tracking towards approval, and much more. The progress idea is spreading with the “abundance agenda”, “techno-optimism”, “supply-side progressivism” and “American dynamism”.
And, of course, 2024 saw the success of the first annual Progress Conference. 200 people excited about human progress gathered for two days in Berkeley, California, to share ideas in deep conversation, catalyze new projects to make even more progress, and get energize and inspired. Many attendees even said it was one of the best conferences (or even the best!) they had ever attended. We shared more about our reflections here, including a list of over a dozen write-ups from writers such as Noah Smith, Packy McCormick, Scott Alexander, and many more.
With this great reception, we’re excited to announce plans for Progress Conference 2025. It will be bigger, longer, and better, as we build on last year’s success and participant feedback.
Progress Conference 2025 Overview
Hosted by: the Roots of Progress Institute, together with Abundance Institute, Foresight Institute, Foundation for American Innovation, HumanProgress, the Institute for Progress, the Institute for Humane Studies, and Works in Progress.
When: October 16 – 19, 2025
Where: Berkeley, CA — back at the Lighthaven Campus that received rave reviews for the first conference.
Speakers: We’ll announce an initial slate of speakers by April. Last year’s speakers included Patrick Collison, Tyler Cowen, Steven Pinker, and many others. You can see all 2024 speakers on this page (scroll down) and watch recorded talks here.
Attendees: We expect 300+ builders, storytellers, policy makers, intellectuals, and students. This is an invitation-only event, but anyone can apply for an invitation. The open application period will start in April.
Program: The main two-day conference will happen all day Friday and Saturday, similar to 2024 — attend talks on topics from AI protopia to longevity to policy, sign up to run an unconference session, pitch your ideas to those who could help make your dreams a reality, and more. New for 2025, Thursday and Sunday will be add-on days, with optional gatherings for interest groups and other activities, such as SF Bay Area company tours.
Sponsorships: Thanks to last year’s sponsors who made the inaugural event possible: Jane Street, the Cato Institute, Astera Institute, Freethink Media, Foundation for Economic Education, Future of Life Institute, Good Science Project, Manifold, and Protocol Labs. Details on sponsorship opportunities for the 2025 conference will be announced soon; if you’re interested in sponsoring, you can reach out to us at progress-conference@rootsofprogress.org
Our mission is to establish a new philosophy of progress for the 21st century, and to build a culture of progress. Bringing the members of the progress movement together is a core part of our strategy: the annual large conference is just a first step; we’re already planning more in person and virtual events.
Our team is growing: Welcome, Ben Thomas
To make all this happen, our team is growing: Ben Thomas is joining us as our Event Manager!
Ben has a background in operations working with organizations of almost any size, from small nonprofits to Fortune 100 companies. He started his career in management consulting at McKinsey & Company, including a rotation at the McKinsey Global Institute, the firm’s technology, business, and economics research group. Then he worked in strategy, operations, data, customer support, and marketing at technology and media nonprofit BibleProject. Ben has been following the progress movement from the sidelines ever since his economics professor had “the” Our World in Data charts pinned up on the office door, and he’s thrilled to contribute directly now.
At the Roots of Progress Institute, Ben will lead the annual progress conference, create more in-person events for the progress community, and support other community building initiatives. If you’ve got ideas for events you’d like to see happen in the progress movement, please reach out, and if you’re a speaker, sponsor, or conference guest, look out for emails from Ben in your inbox.