The world has become extremely complex. The exponential growth of technologies combined with slow social adaptivity has lead to a high level of uncertainty, social institutions with outdated operating models and extremely unequal access of people to resources and information.

Humanitarian, technological and ecological risks are all getting less and less controllable. There is an ongoing struggle for survival for a majority of the global population, which is likely to intensify over time unless societies embrace positive change.

Technologies are neutral. They do not work by themselves, their impacts are driven by organizations which deploy them in more or less ethical ways. We should stop thinking purely about technologies and instead pay more attention to the motivations and purposes of organizations.

In less than two decades, we've observed the rise of some truly innovative, transformative organizations. They've been applying technology to reinvent solutions to global problems. Thanks to them, today we have access to unprecedented new ways to gain knowledge and effectively collaborate across the globe. The best of theses organizations share common factors:

• Massive Transformative Purpose – the organization acts towards durable and continuous quality of life improvements for all,
  
• Scalability – reaching the most people and having truly massive impacts,
  
• Technological by design, not as an afterthought,
  
• Their objectives and impacts can be measured and verified,
  
• Sustainable and self-sufficient operating models,
  
• An open and cooperative culture.

Examples:

• Wikipedia (Jimmy Wales) — the biggest free encyclopedia ever created. Allows anyone to access information in their preferred language.
• Khan Academy (Salman Khan) — free public education offering opportunities for development to anyone in the world.
• Kickstarter (Perry Chen) — crowdfunding for independent creative projects and inventions. Allows entrepreneurs and creators find resources and like-minded people.

Philtech (philanthropy + technologies) is about accelerating the establishment and growth of technological organizations which seek to solve global social problems. They may appear anywhere and level out access of all people to information, resources and opportunities. These organizations focus on eliminating the sources of problems rather than simply mitigating the consequences.

We believe that there should be increasingly greater numbers of companies fulfilling these principles in their business models and in their approach to offering much needed solutions. To promote the growth of such organizations, we have created the open global Philtech Initiative which aims to:

• Describe philtech organizations and the underlying principles for their creation
  
• Develop instruments for creation of philtech organizations on a massive scale
  
• Create a global movement of philtech entrepreneurs to share best practices

Our goal will be realized when a critical mass of organizations incorporate philtech principles into their operating models.