Project Alpha

Project Alpha: The Planetary AI Engine for Forging the Science of the $48 Trillion Economy

A Grand Challenge in Forging the Science of Decision-Making at Planetary Scale.

Explore The Mission

The Multi-Trillion Dollar Problem

The global economy runs on projects, but it's fundamentally inefficient. We are addressing the largest, most persistent source of waste in global value creation.

Global Project Value Annually

~$48T

Documented Annual Waste

~$5T

Over 10% of every dollar invested globally is lost to poor project performance, resource misallocation, and rework. This isn't a logistical failure—it's a human one. The root cause is a lack of scientific understanding of how individuals and teams make decisions under pressure.

WASTE
TOTAL VALUE

Even a 1% improvement in efficiency would unlock **$480 billion** in annual economic value. Project Alpha is designed to capture this prize by creating the science of project execution.

A Partnership of Vision, Science, and Scale

Success requires a seamless fusion of visionary leadership, deep scientific expertise, academic rigor, and unparalleled technological power.

The Project Science Institute

The Vision & Domain Expertise

The institute is guided by a leadership team with world-class expertise. The initiative is led by co-CEO and Chief Research Officer, **Dr. Josh Ramirez**, who founded the Institute for Neuro & Behavioral Project Management and provides the core scientific vision. He is joined by co-CEO **Dr. Joshua Cunio**, who brings strategic and commercial leadership. The scientific direction is further strengthened by **Dr. Mel Slater** (Head of PM Research) and **Dr. Jodi Wilson** (Head of Behavioral Science), ensuring our work is grounded in proven science and practical reality.

Stevens Institute of Technology

The Research Engine & Academic Hub

Through its Stevens Institute for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI), Stevens will provide the intellectual horsepower. It is fitting that this future-facing initiative is partnered with the alma mater of **Henry Gantt**, one of the foremost pioneers of modern project management, bringing the history and the future of the discipline full circle. Faculty and graduate researchers will design the complex algorithms, develop causal and agent-based models, and ensure academic rigor.

Amazon Web Services

The Technology Powerhouse

AWS provides the essential infrastructure and advanced AI services that make this challenge solvable. From data lakes capable of storing global-scale project data (**S3, Lake Formation**) to the generative AI (**Bedrock**), causal inference (**SageMaker**), graph database (**Neptune**), and simulation engines (**SimSpace Weaver**) needed for discovery, AWS is the platform on which Project Science will be built.

The Dual Impact of Project Alpha

Our work creates immediate commercial value while building a foundational scientific asset for humanity.

Primary Mission: Commercializing Project Science

Creating the foundational technologies and global standards that will define the future of project execution.

PSI Predictive Engine

The core predictive technology, powered by our NeuralPlan IP, that makes project forecasts more accurate and delivery more efficient. This engine can be integrated to power next-generation SaaS, conversational AI, and other intelligent applications.

The Cognitive OS

A backend decision-making AI platform. A conversational AI game-changer designed to be the operating system for complex project and strategic decision-making in any enterprise environment.

The Global Standard

The Project Science Institute will establish the global standard for project management education, certification, and best practices, influencing government, corporate, and software sectors worldwide.

High-Level Valuation Potential

Revenue Stream Potential Annual Revenue Est. 10-Year Value
Platform & API Licensing $300M – $700M $3B – $7B
Enterprise & Government Solutions $100M – $300M $1B – $3B
National Security & Defense $200M – $500M $2B – $5B
Standards & Education $50M – $100M $500M – $1B
Total Potential $6.5B – $16B+

Secondary Impact: A Foundational Science of Human Endeavor

The engine becomes a "Digital Twin of Human Endeavor," revolutionizing multiple fields.

Foundational AI

Creates a "Causal Human Prior" for safer AI alignment and a "social sandbox" for training agents in complex human skills.

National Security

Reduces epistemic uncertainty by modeling adversary decision-making, enabling superior strategic planning and conflict deterrence.

Economics & Finance

Enables large-scale simulation of behavioral economics theories and provides new signals for predicting market volatility.

Corporate Strategy

Allows leaders to simulate corporate reorganizations and run strategic "pre-mortems" to de-risk major initiatives.

The Engine Room: Technical Grand Challenges

This mission requires solving a series of first-of-their-kind engineering challenges at planetary scale. This is why a deep partnership with AWS is essential.

🧠 Layer 1: The Unified Data Fabric +

The Challenge:

To create a unified view of human behavior from petabytes of wildly heterogeneous data (papers, APIs, logs, biometrics). This requires a dynamic, self-organizing fabric, not a simple data lake.

Why We Need AWS:

AWS Glue & Lake Formation are critical for managing this complex data at scale. Amazon Kinesis is essential for future real-time data ingestion.

⚙️ Layer 2: The Neuro-Symbolic Cognitive Core +

The Challenge:

To build a hybrid AI that marries the symbolic reasoning of knowledge graphs with deep learning to move from correlation to causation. This involves creating a multi-billion-node causal knowledge graph and training a new class of "Causal Foundation Models."

Why We Need AWS:

Amazon Neptune is the only managed graph database that can handle this scale. Training novel causal models requires the massive, distributed HPC environment of Amazon SageMaker.

🌍 Layer 3: The Planetary-Scale Validation Engine +

The Challenge:

To create a "virtual laboratory" with millions of concurrent AI agents whose decisions are powered by real-time calls to our complex causal models. This creates an exponential computational demand.

Why We Need AWS:

This is precisely the problem AWS SimSpace Weaver was designed for, allowing us to manage a simulation of unprecedented fidelity and scale.

The 4-Year Mission Plan

A phased roadmap to de-risk the research and build momentum, culminating in a validated scientific theory and commercial application.

Year 1

Foundation & Synthesis

Ingest all public project management, cognitive, social, and brain science literature. Use Bedrock and Neptune to build the world's most comprehensive knowledge graph of existing theory. Publish initial findings.

Year 2

Pattern Recognition & Hypothesis Generation

Integrate anonymized data from industry partners. Use SageMaker for causal inference to identify hidden patterns and generate novel, testable hypotheses about project behavior.

Years 3-4

Simulation & Theory Validation

Build agent-based models in SimSpace Weaver. Test hypotheses "in-silico" across millions of simulated projects to create a validated, dynamic theory of project execution.

The Investment

This grand challenge requires a significant, fully-contingent budget to fund a world-class team and the necessary computational resources over four years.

Total 4-Year Budget Request

~$135.8M

Total Direct Labor Cost ~$68.1M
Est. Non-Labor & Royalty Costs ~$40.5M
Management Reserve (25%) ~$27.2M

The 25% Management Reserve is a credible and responsible contingency to navigate the profound scientific and technical uncertainties of this first-of-its-kind research.