Humanity's strength as a species?

Hello everyone, this same question has me wondering for quite some time: how strong are we as a species? You see, the thing is, unless we are wiped out by some natural catastrophy, our own reckless behavior or some kind of disease, us humans as a race have a lot of prospect. We have proven to be incredibly resourceful, we can operate quite well as a community, and at this point, our technology is going to places we couldn't have dreamed of even just 10 years ago! Nano technology, time-influence devices, subspace research, we could go a long way with our current brainpower! And a lot of scientists believe our brain power is only improving! So how capable as a race ARE we? Chances are we could be meeting ET any time soon, and his race could be pretty advanced as well. So, say that there are a lot of other sentient races out there, what chance do you give humanity? How smart do you think the "others" are? What do you think we will be able to do, military and technology wise? Elaborate!