Board votes to fill vacancy at next election

Carl Youngblood co-founded the MTA in 2006 and has served as its President and CEO since 2021. He is engaged with the Association’s efforts to explore the intersection of Mormon theology and transhumanist philosophy. Among the many initiatives that Carl has been involved with, he has designed and built the Association's current website, which unifies all prior content in a single location using inspiring visuals and animations. ¶ Youngblood’s professional career spans more than two decades of full-stack software development at the intersection of Silicon Slopes and Silicon Valley. He was an early employee at Omniture (acquired by Adobe), a founding engineering leader at Divvy (a Utah-based unicorn startup), co-founder of Blockscale LLC (a blockchain services firm eventually contracted into Coinbase), and Senior Solutions Architect for Amazon Managed Blockchain at AWS. His technical fluency ranges from scalable web architecture to blockchain infrastructure—the kind of deep engineering experience that grounds his theological speculation in working knowledge of the systems he writes about. ¶ Under his leadership, the Association has developed its mission of promoting abundant human flourishing through the compassionate use of science and technology, fostering dialogue across secular and religious audiences and arguing that each has something essential to learn from the other. His writing, collected on his blog From the Depths, spans over a decade of conference presentations and theological essays: meditations on participatory resurrection, the alignment of artificial intelligence read through the Grand Council narrative, intelligence as eternal and multifaceted, and religion as social technology. He writes, as a colleague has observed, with warmth and accessibility on questions of momentous practical consequence—how to navigate faith crisis without losing faith’s power, how to think about resurrection as something we actively participate in rather than passively receive. ¶ Youngblood’s distinctive contribution to transhumanism is the integration of serious technical expertise with serious theological reflection. He embodies the Mormon transhumanist conviction that scientific and spiritual development are not parallel tracks but a single path—that the learning required to build better systems is continuous with the exaltation Mormon theology envisions, and that human ingenuity, rightly oriented, is itself a divine imperative.
In response to the resignation of Roselle Stevenson, the MTA Board has opted to wait until next year’s annual election to fill the recent vacancy on the board. Rather than holding a by-election, we believe waiting until the annual election will give potential candidates ample time to prepare, connect with the community, and express their visions for the future of the Association. This ensures that our board members are selected based on a thorough understanding of their goals and alignment with our mission. We believe that this approach will contribute to a board that is well-prepared, engaged, and equipped to guide the MTA into the exciting possibilities that lie ahead.
As we move forward with this decision, we invite all of our members to continue participating in the conversations, discussions, and initiatives that define the MTA. Your input is invaluable, and we are grateful for your ongoing dedication to our shared mission. Change is not just something we adapt to; it is something we actively shape. Thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to the vibrant discussions and positive changes that lie ahead.
Warm regards,
Carl Youngblood President MTA Board of Directors