Brian Waniewski
Executive Director, Harmony Labs
Brian Waniewski is an innovative institutional leader whose work has spanned media and research, data and AI, systems design and spiritual development. He serves as executive director at Harmony Labs, a non-profit media research lab on a mission to research and reshape society’s relationship with media. For 10+ years Harmony Labs has helped storytellers and strategists, decision makers and dreamers, harness the immense power of media to shape a positive, pluralistic future and support human flourishing. Before Harmony Labs, Brian served as managing director at Institute of Play, a design studio for experiences that make learning irresistible. Brian helped establish Quest to Learn, a New York City public school that leverages game design to make school engaging and culturally relevant for young people, and GlassLab Games. Brian was trained as a poet and spends a portion of each year meditating, dividing his time between New York, Lima, and Rio.
“Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing / you make of me! You would play upon me, you / would seem to know my stops, you would pluck / out the heart of my mystery, you would sound me / from my lowest note to the top of my compass; / and there is much music, excellent voice, in this / little organ, yet cannot you make it speak.”
