Colorado tech cooperative Dojo4 Member-Owners Corey Kohn and Derek Dunagan share their thoughts on a new initiative they’ve developed to spark conversation around technology, nature and humanity—and the quest to find community, balance and well-being among them.

Developed in response to the feelings of isolation that can arise in the tech industry, the Antidote to Tech initiative aims to build a community where people who work in tech and associated spaces can connect with others who share their values. The initiative invites its community members to commit to producing technology with an awareness of its impact, while reminding them to prioritize their own well-being—by nurturing strong personal relationships and networks, and restorative activities.

Through this initiative, its developers hope to share their intentions to lend their creative and intellectual skills to products and systems they find meaningful, rather than an extractive system that drives a continual need for more and more production without purpose or true value.

The Antidote to Tech was developed by Dojo4, a community-based, global-scale, member-owned tech cooperative that creates positive change through exemplary technology and design. As a Certified B Corporation, Dojo4 is committed to meaningful work that supports thriving natural and human ecologies. The Colorado-based co-op prioritizes projects that promote environmental and social justice. 

In this Q&A, Dojo4 Member-Owners Corey Kohn and Derek Dunagan introduce Antidote to Tech and share their hopes for the initiative. 

Q: What is the Antidote to Tech?

Corey: Antidote to Tech is an initiative for people in the tech industry and associated spaces who are committed to thriving natural environments and genuine human connection. For us, that also means that that connection is built on kindness toward ourselves and others. Both the commitment to the natural environment and human interaction is based in compassion and empathy and self-knowledge.

Q: Where did this idea come from?

Corey: Antidote to Tech has been in the works since the beginning of Dojo4 in 2009. We're a small tech agency, and recently also a cooperative. We build custom software for clients of all sizes, mostly hard-to-solve problems, applications, that kind of thing. 

One of the things we started noticing early on was that in the tech community, there are a lot of demoralization. So we started talking about this. Why is this? What's going on? The tech industry is very moneyed. There's a lot of privilege there, and yet there's an overwhelming amount of isolation and depression stemming from a sense of meaninglessness, a lack of heart.

We started to explore that—why and how it’s come to be and what we can do about it. My colleagues in the tech industry are incredibly intelligent people with brilliant brains, yet there is the sense that this resource of incredible intelligence and problem-solving is often being applied to meaningless things. And what could that collective resource do if it were applied in a different way? 

Q: What is your ultimate goal with this initiative?

Derek: I would like to see this grow and evolve and change every time a new person joins the conversation. I would like to see it become a rich evolution of conversations that spin off into various actions and initiatives. I think there's a benefit to defining it in this way so we can draw people who are coming at the problems with tech from different angles.

Q: How do you see the Antidote to Tech evolving?

Derek: I believe Antidote to Tech could have a healing effect—and I would like to see a lot of healing happen. I don't know of many initiatives that are trying to acknowledge the mental health of people who work in tech. 

Corey: I absolutely love what you're saying about healing. Because when you feel like something isn't right or you feel isolated, it's really hard to do that work on your own. And it's not that we're going to do a whole bunch of group work together, but just saying, ‘I see you.’ We can provide some validation. 

Antidote to Tech doesn't have a strong agenda. In fact, I’m not sure we have an agenda at all. We're not trying to enact policy change. We're not an advocacy group. It's just a way for people to recognize that they might not be alone in feeling disconnected. We don't even know what the conversation looks like yet. This is iterative; we're hoping people will put their names on it so people can see that although we might be very different, we all are humans that experience the world and ourselves, and we need to be in relationship with those things in order to lead a meaningful life.

Derek: I think a lot of people are feeling this way in tech, so I think there's plenty of space for lots of people. I would like to see the initiative grow—not just for the sake of growth, but because I know people are out there feeling this, and I want them to find this community. 

Corey: I'm hoping that this is a springboard for people on a personal level. And that might not ever be associated back with Antidote to Tech, but it just sparks something for people. That is a goal for me. And that would be really gratifying. Because this is iterative, we're asking now for feedback about what people want and need the most. That might be resource toolkits or discussion boards, we'll see.

Q:  Modern technology has existed for a relatively short period of time—what are your thoughts on how we can enable these tools in a healthy way? 

Corey: As people who are technologists or in associated spaces, we know from experience that technology is not the problem—but the way we sometimes build it and the way we apply it can cause a lot of feelings of difficulty and add to the feedback loop in a way that is more poisonous than medicinal.

You could say tech is the problem because it reinforces feelings of isolation or a sense of meaninglessness; but it seems to be co-evolving with all sorts of other things, including feelings of depression, anxiety, and isolation, that are clearly not just in the tech community.

Derek: Reality is a series of feedback loops. Every time something new is introduced, it has new side effects—and we start responding to those side effects. Tech evolves rapidly and changes constantly. And people who work in tech are used to it rapidly evolving.

Today it's easy to get anything in front of a lot of people quickly. And because it's so easy, we produce a completely useless amount of information now. We’re flooded with information and notifications. We have to respond to that reality. So what do we need to build to get this to where it becomes more useful and less out of control? 
There's not some moral direction to how tech is and how it could evolve. Sometimes it's poison, sometimes it's medicine, and sometimes it's just neutral. So the question is: When we realize that it's poison, what do we do about that? And how do we get a good balance in that system of feedback loops?