Despite astronomical technological, scientific, and economic progress in the past few centuries, poverty remains a pernicious thorn in the side of the developed world. Caught in a debate between free market principles and communism, politics continues to be mired in a hopeless cycle, arguing the same ineffective strategies over and over, failing to look for realistic causes of poverty and realistic solutions. As of yet one of the most persistent unsolvable problems (death still outranking poverty), poverty is a gateway to solving countless other issues facing the human race. Complex problems often have simple causes, whereas the process to understand those processes is extremely complex. The Institute is devoting significant resources to understanding the root causes of poverty and connecting those causes to viable solutions, far outside what society is presently considering.