Co-Designing Sustainable Prosocial Digital Infrastructure
328 | Sun 04 Aug 10:45 a.m.–11:30 a.m.
Presented by
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LX Cast
@laurex
https://questioning.ca/about
LX is currently a founder of a group app called Fractal and a student and practitioner of patterns of collective practice. They have been a product leader working on communication and collaboration tech for about 12 years. They're a board member at Prosocial Design Network and Tech Fleet, a past Resident Fellow at the Integrity Institute, a steering committee member of the Council on Tech and Social Cohesion, a member of Aspen Institute's Virtually Human working group, a mentor with PDX Women in Tech and All Tech is Human, and a consultant helping nonprofits develop product discovery practices.
LX Cast is mostly water and collections of bacteria and bone and stardust. An emergent invention. Canadian West Coast island-born former New Yorker current Portlander curiouser researcher reader leader shape shifter code switcher beginner elder young a flash of light technologist social engineer experimental questioning contradictory vegan (except for brownies) consultant recoverer contributor community practitioner strategist poet weirdo professional queer non-binary neurodivergent raised-Quaker seemer listener fox cook step-parent partner collaborator co-keeper teacher coach flaneur aesthete hiker hard to locate reliable emerging being who practices synthesis learning listening walking investigating supporting reflecting confusing growing perplexing and occasionally punctuating.
LX Cast
@laurex
https://questioning.ca/about
Abstract
To build social tech infrastructure that supports our collective well-being, we need to include decentralized, open source, and slow-growth options. However, these approaches have historically fallen outside traditional tech funding mechanisms.
Tech that supports collective well-being should meet real needs, solve real problems, be usable, and be purpose-built, not seeing people as an exploitable resource or means to extract. So how can projects like these be sustainable, secure, and built in collaboration with communities? We think that people putting money into projects should be part of the project design team, so that their expertise, experience, and motivations can be both represented and explicitly weighed in the context of the problem the technology hopes to solve.
In other words, we need to co-design our financial models to find strategies that support the holistic goals of the makers, community, and capital suppliers. In this workshop, we will explore some of the mechanisms that might lead to co-design frameworks, and surface strategies from participants. We will learn from one another what has worked and what hasn’t, and re-imagine how people putting money into FOSS might be collaborators with us and the communities we’re designing and building with.
Videos
To build social tech infrastructure that supports our collective well-being, we need to include decentralized, open source, and slow-growth options. However, these approaches have historically fallen outside traditional tech funding mechanisms. Tech that supports collective well-being should meet real needs, solve real problems, be usable, and be purpose-built, not seeing people as an exploitable resource or means to extract. So how can projects like these be sustainable, secure, and built in collaboration with communities? We think that people putting money into projects should be part of the project design team, so that their expertise, experience, and motivations can be both represented and explicitly weighed in the context of the problem the technology hopes to solve. In other words, we need to co-design our financial models to find strategies that support the holistic goals of the makers, community, and capital suppliers. In this workshop, we will explore some of the mechanisms that might lead to co-design frameworks, and surface strategies from participants. We will learn from one another what has worked and what hasn’t, and re-imagine how people putting money into FOSS might be collaborators with us and the communities we’re designing and building with.
Available sources: