Kenner futures

Kenner Futures: The Phone That Serves You, Not Platforms

What if your next phone ran computation locally, kept your data under your control, and connected you through community-owned networks rather than extractive platforms?

The IEEE, which is the global organization that sets the technical standards behind modern technology, has just formed its first workgroup to define the infrastructure for the next generation of connectivity. The technical foundations are being laid now. At the TH/NGS we have a rare window to help shape them before the usual players lock in another decade of surveillance and extraction.

In this workshop, we’ll collectively imagine what a citizen phone ecosystem could look like in 2035, then map backwards to identify the decisions, policies, and designs that would make it possible. We call this future device the “kenner”. It’s named after Marge Piercy’s 1976 vision of technology that empowers citizens rather than controlling them. These outputs will be openly published and submitted to the IEEE workgroup as citizen input on what next-generation infrastructure should prioritize.

Our Purpose

Beyond the IEEE submission, we’re driven by something personal: contributing to a positive vision for the next generation of phones: devices that are genuinely better for people and planet. We believe this future is possible. Are you ready to help? No technical background required: everyone is an expert through their own experience, and it’s this collective intelligence we need to embody, energize, and give direction.

Hosts

Maarten Lens-FitzGerald is co-founder of Project Kenner and works at the crossroads of technology, civics, and transformation. With a background spanning augmented reality (Layar), AI, voice interfaces (author of Voice: The Speech Revolution), and government innovation on local (City of Amsterdam), national (SVB), and European level (Systems Innovation Network), he now focuses on European strategic autonomy through the lens of systems innovation. His motto: tending movements that shape the future.

Rob van Kranenburg is a writer who founded the IoT Council in 2009 and IoT Day in 2010 with a mission to bring awareness and agency of the digital transition to a broader audience. He is a Member of the EU’s General-Purpose AI Code of Practice Group and author of Statecraft and Policymaking in the Age of Digital Twins (Springer, 2024). Rob is the driver behind the IEEE Industry Activity “A Technical Reference Architecture Framework for an Open 6G Device Ecosystem,” believing a 6G phone could enable new forms of connectivity, governance, taxation, and mental health balance. He is co-founder of Project Kenner.