History of Future Communities Institute
When we founded Future Communities Institute early in 2025, it wasn’t just the launch of a new nonprofit—it was the continuation of an initiative that began years earlier at the University of Southern California’s Digital Health Lab (D-Health).
D-Health was born out of a simple but ambitious question: How can we use design principles and data-driven collaboration to tackle the stickiest problems in health?
At USC, D-Health operated as a public health innovation lab, bringing together researchers, technologists, and community partners to test new ways of solving “wicked problems” in society. The team’s early focus centered on homelessness, which demanded fresh thinking, bold partnerships, and real-world experimentation.
“When you’re trying to solve issues this complex, there’s so much demand from the public and from society to act that it can finally break down the barriers that usually stop innovation.”
-Karthik, FCI co-founder
That urgency gave rise to cross-sector collaborations, with D-Health convening city governments, advocacy groups, and data scientists to modernize how communities understood and responded to homelessness.
An early example of this can be seen in Long Beach, where our team helped the city transition from paper-based outreach surveys to a digital platform with geotracking, creating a far richer and more accurate dataset to inform services.
In Santa Monica, D-Health worked with multiple departments in the city—from law enforcement to homeless services—to safely share data and coordinate care. The result was a 30% reduction in police calls for service related to homelessness, proving that better data and collaboration can drive better outcomes.
As the partnerships multiplied, so did the momentum, and that led to the decision for Future Communities Institute to become a standalone non-profit. This move allows us to continue our work with even more impact.
Founded in 2025 by Prashant, Emma, and Karthik, the Future Communities Institute carries forward the same DNA that defined D-Health: blending data, design, and collaboration to reimagine how systems serve people.
As artificial intelligence, automation, and digital transformation reshape how we live and work, FCI’s mission is clear: To ensure these innovations benefit vulnerable communities, rather than leave them behind.
Today, FCI partners with technologists, city governments, and local organizations to embed community expertise into the design of emerging systems—from healthcare to housing to workforce development.
By integrating participatory design and iterative evaluation, FCI ensures that the communities it serves help define what success looks like.
From concierge medicine to high-tech ecosystems, there’s still a wide gap between what’s possible and what’s accessible. FCI exists to close that gap—to turn data into dignity, innovation into inclusion, and community insight into systemic change.
