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Developh’s 2022 Talk Themes

Computing, interdependency, the homegrown & organic, tenderness. ✿ We’ve narrowed down themes for our events and programming, informed by Developh’s collective vision & consciousness.

Swipe to learn more about what we’re thinking →
Propose talks under the themes here → develo.ph/speakerInterest

These are all prompts and starting points — intended to be ambiguous, and themselves all interconnected & open to interpretation.

Prompts

Connectivity

Everything is interdependent, everything is constantly resurfacing, all is intersectional. We live under and manufacture the systems in which we coordinate, engage, and exchange. How do we step back and realize the abundance of these partnerships? How do we honor and nurture the links we have within and between ourselves, and with that of nature?

Broadly, expect talks about networks, systems thinking, and interdependency. Workshops, discussions, and Are.na walkthroughs are also encouraged!

→ Connectivity is all about interdependency, intersections, and plurality.

Homegrown

We are drawn towards the handmade and personal because they are inseparable from humanity and people. Oftentimes the technology we engage with is commercial and works outside of our self-interest. How can we design and nurture our own spaces and to reclaim agency over our data, platforms, and tools? We want to investigate and learn the principles and technical skills behind cozy skills from programming, archival, to sewing. Making what you need and what the people closest to you need is the most powerful thing you can do — what is small at scale is powerful. When we create technology, we shape it more carefully for the people we love.

→ The homegrown is all about the independent, handcrafted, and personal.

Tenderness

Can we not only reclaim technology as a tool for liberation — can we reinvent it to be a space for care? Can technology be ‘soft’, gentle, and kind? ‘Tenderness’ might be one of the last adjectives we think of when asked to describe computing — which is why we’re interested in prompts, reflections, and methods to craft a more empathetic, consensual, and purposeful web that nurtures love rather than hinders it.

With tenderness comes theories and practices of ethics, care, and consciousness. Radical slowness and love against a web overtaken by efficiency, capitalism, misunderstanding, and hate. In the end, thinking about technology and tenderness invites us to reimagine our relationship with computing from a personal level and in thinking about its potential.

→ Tenderness is all about care, ethics, and softness.

On Our Events

We’re announcing some of our first events soon and would love to hear your voices (it’s not too late!). We’ll also be moving to a donation-based model for events, providing a negotiable 80/20 split (speakers/Developh) to better compensate our speakers for the time and labor they put into our talks — especially as our events generally offer a significant amount of resources and other post-event support.

To stay updated, keep following our Instagram or join our newsletter at developh.substack.com.

If you’d like to support Developh’s programming, you may donate at our Patreon at patreon.com/developh (more benefits coming soon).

 

 

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Developh’s new logo

After a much needed hiatus while moving onto our 6th (!) year of existence, we’re back with a new logo and description — co-created with you.

Developh is a critical technology institute based in the Philippines. Founded in Metro Manila in 2016 to educate young Filipino technologists, our little nonprofit has collectively grown alongside us and the greater industry. Now more than ever, we must reclaim technology as a tool for liberation rather than oppression. We work to acknowledge and reinvent systems of harm that dominate our platforms and everyday, reimagining what software, the internet, and technology can offer us if designed with intention and care—for people rather than profit.

In our approach to ‘intersectionality’, we work to bring technology out of its silo. Focusing solely on the commercial and capital has led us to a state where our everyday technologies are founded upon the tangible exploitation of workers across the global south. Ill-thought startup culture works vacuously, steering away a tool that we could use to rebuild and restore our communities and systems to one that continues to benefit from broken structures. Instead of parroting the works of Silicon Valley, we look at indigenous practices, a rich history of arts & collective organizing, cultural work, and beyond that inform our thinking about technology as a space for healing, art, restoration, and guidance rather than the end means.

The deeper we explore technology, the more essential this reframing of it feels. 6 years in, we know this to be more true than ever. We must acknowledge technology’s harms. We must be cautiously optimistic, studying how technology may be rewired for hope. We must reclaim technology.

Logo designed by Alannah Mitra (@mwahahannah)