This new editorial and events platform explores the intersection of technology and mysticism

The world, our cities and our homes are alive and bustling with tech and data – seemingly inescapably. What Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming (HUWD) proposes is something all the more thoughtful. Injecting a spiritual perspective into discussions of AI futures, space exploration, and human connection, HUWD is a new editorial platform that offers the space to rethink and challenge how technology is developed and deployed, drawing on wisdom from ancient traditions and indigenous knowledge. 

“I think a lot of us have been socially conditioned to keep our spiritual, mystical and embodied journeys separate to our quest for innovation and creativity,” founder Anna Gerber tells us. “I know this was my story, maybe because these things are hard to explain,” she continues,  “but HUWD flips this and invites people to run towards the mystical teachings.” For Anna, this is nothing new, having worked at Google’s former R&D lab, Empath Lab, which led her to discover the history of technological development and the unseen. “I learned that Marie Curie achieved scientific breakthroughs from attending seances and Alan Turing believed in telepathy,” Anna says. “I started weaving this thinking together in a feature article for Creative Review on the merging of technology and spirituality,” which soon became the seed for HUWD.

The platform’s mission is ambitious: to shape a future where technology is not just functional but soulful, compassionate, and reflective of a broader array of cultural perspectives. Acting as an invitation to consider how practices from meditation to cosmology might guide the next generation of innovation, Anna explains how the platform – especially in the wake of unsettling AI advancement and climate catastrophes – is both urgent and hopeful. “I want HUWD to be where people share ideas inspired by past, present and future, to create better tech for good,” she says. “My hope is that HUWD shows everyone that we need to lean into creative principles that have guided science, technology and the arts for many millennia,” allowing its readers to engage with optimistic, “radically heart-felt” approaches on the future of technology – be that articles, events or workshops.

The platform’s design is equally reflective, crafted by London-based design studio Ben Prescott Design (BPD), it mirrors HUWD’s fusion of the organic and the digital perspectives. “I asked for it to feel like a breath of fresh air, to be optimistic without seeming naive,” Anna recalls, discussing her brief to BPD. “We talked extensively about how to visually express the interconnectedness of ideas,” especially those between ancient wisdom, science, mysticism and innovation. “The organic shapes BPD created embody all of these connections,” Anna says, which results in the ethereal-feeling, liquid typographic forms that – courtesy of technologist Ed Lewis – are responsive within digital spaces. The subsequent typeface, Altocumulus, serves as the hero typeface and the wordmark, creating an unconventional, human connection within a tech-focused space. “The organic and connecting shapes in the typeface serve as reflections of the optimistic, fluid intersection of ideas at the heart of everything we’re developing at HUWD,” Anna says.

The first issue of their quarterly online magazine features contributions from a broad group of thinkers and creatives, including AI researcher Danielle Krettek Cobb, MIT Media Lab’s Prathima Muniyappa, digital artist Gretchen Andrew, ex-DeepMind engineer Larry Muhlstein, and It’s Nice That’s Us editor-at-large, the designer and writer Elizabeth Goodspeed. You can explore a wide range of topics, from building AI with emotional intelligence to examining space colonisation through the lens of ancient cosmology; HUWD offers a refreshing, imaginative approach to journalism and new thinking, encouraging slow, introspective discourse.