2026-07-09 –, Solidarity Station
Folk Tech is a solidarity-based movement among designers, developers, and people in communities who want digital technology that fits their daily life and supports interdependence without the extraction, exploitation, or surveillance found in most proprietary technology today. In this session we'll talk about the principles of Folk Tech and how they apply when actually building software, and do some creative imagining together. I'll share the example of Spacious, a p2p audio messaging app that I (and Michael Dougherty) are building.
Folk Tech is a solidarity-based movement among designers, developers, and people in communities who want digital technology that fits their daily life and supports interdependence without the extraction, exploitation, or surveillance found in most proprietary technology today.
In Silicon Valley, people are “consumers” and “users.” We resist a narrative that turns people into subjects of a technocracy. With Folk Tech, we’re all just folks.
How do you build using the Folk Tech Principles? In this workshop, we'll go over the principles, do some creative thinking together about how to incorporate them, and talk how they fit in to the way we're building, in my case with Spacious, a p2p audio messaging app.
The Folk Tech Principles
- We make tech for regular folks, for the activities and practices of life beyond work.
- We use collaborative, participatory design to stay attuned to real needs and motives (e.g. interviews, advisory groups, play sessions, and usability testing).
- We consider accessibility and include people who have been marginalized or historically deprioritized by technology builders.
- We make simple, elegant, intuitive interfaces for real people. We don’t just copy the patterns established by extractive tech.
- We build peer-to-peer, decentralized, open-source technology where people and their data and behaviour aren’t monitored or monetized.
- We use business models that are aligned with people who use our technology, our developers, and our communities.
- We embrace interoperability, standards and protocols of collaboration, and a DIY ethos.
- We believe in proliferation, not scale. People belong to places and groups with their own cultural contexts, not a platform to rule them all.
- We value creativity, respect, and mutual care.
- LX Cast is a researcher, community convener, program designer, strategist, and product leader who has worked on communication and collaboration tech serving millions of people for over a decade. LX is currently co-founder of Spacious, a peer-to-peer group audio app. They are the steward of Folk Tech, a 2026 Voqal Fellow, Curator at DWeb Camp, Chair of the Board at Tech Fleet, a board member at Prosocial Design Network, a steering committee member of the Council on Tech and Social Cohesion, a member of Aspen Institute’s Virtually Human working group, a space steward at DWeb Camp, a mentor with PDX Women in Tech, All Tech is Human, and Mentor Me Collective, and the teacher of The UX of Community. They work with organizations to develop communities of practice. LX is a founder at Changemaker PM, helping nonprofits develop product discovery practices. Past roles include Head of Research at Marco Polo, Sr. Product Manager at Notion, Chief Storyteller at Olark, Program Designer at AI Stewardship Practice Program, Practice Designer at the emergence network, Product Strategist at Lightningrod Labs. Resident Fellow in Community at Integrity Institute, a steward at Collaborative Technology Alliance, and the host of Belonging Builders. Belonging = Freedom = Responsibility is their core organizing principle. How we are with ourselves, our families and friends, our teams, our communities and our culture are interdependent and pattern one another. For this reason, they are committed to their own work in collective practice to be in right relation as a source of possibility for change.