Present Moment Enterprises
a collaborative studio working here and now to create better tech futures
Vision
Present Moment offers workshops and provides research, technical, and strategic support for people and communities to dream, design, and govern the tech futures we want to see in the world.
Guiding Questions
How will we steer AI & tech in ways that affirm our humanity rather than erode it?
How will we kindle the sparks of creativity and joy that open up creative possibilities?
As we work to build better tech futures, how will we live well in the present moment?
Partners
Our work is rooted in Community Technology, a method of teaching and learning about technology to heal relationships and strengthen communities, guided by the Detroit Digital Justice Coalition's principles of Access, Participation, Common Ownership, and Healthy Communities.
We integrate mindfulness traditions and practices fom Thich Nhat Hanh's Plum Village, bringing people together in restorative connection to transform the world as we transform ourselves.
Present Moment builds digital wellbeing through contemplative, relational, participatory processes.
Growing Up in the Age of AI is Present Moment's flagship workshop offering. This interactive, non-technical series guides participants through sharing concerns and hopes to building networks of community support and action. Participants walk away with partners in the struggle, new and energized perspectives, and a sense of collective possibility about nurturing tech safety and wellness with kids in community.
Examples of previous and current work
Workshops & Engagements
Present Moment's flagship workshop series brings parents, caregivers, and kids together to share & create collective action supporting digital wellbeing.
Working with the State of New York and HR&A Advisors, Present Moment's G. Byrum led design and engagement for this NYC listening session on digital equity.
Present Moment's G. Byrum leads a workshop at MIT's Urban Risk Lab on how to set up and use low-power FM in emergencies.
Present Moment's flagship workshop series brings parents, caregivers, and kids together to share & create collective action supporting digital wellbeing.
Tools, Guides, and How-Tos for Everyone
This workbook, created by the Open Tech Institute's Field Team, describes the basic principles and uses of neighborhood mesh networks, small autonomous communications systems.
This zine provides an accessible, explanatory guide to the network-of-networks that make up the internet.
Created by Community Tech NY, this zine walks readers through the process of creating a resilient mesh networking kit for emergencies.
This workbook, created by the Open Tech Institute's Field Team, describes the basic principles and uses of neighborhood mesh networks, small autonomous communications systems.
Participatory Research & Co-Design
Resilient Communities invited small business owners to become hosts & co-designers of resilient networks in neighborhoods devastated by Superstorm Sandy.
Present Moment convenes communities to deliberate and re-envision the ways tech interacts with our lives, communities, the planet, and other social and economic forces.
This resilient tech game invites participants to set up a local area network and use it to simulate communication in a disaster.
Resilient Communities invited small business owners to become hosts & co-designers of resilient networks in neighborhoods devastated by Superstorm Sandy.
Program Design & Strategy
PME founder G. Byrum developed and directed the Just Tech Program, a holistic support model to nurture nontraditional technologists, researchers, journalists, and artists creating radically hopeful tech futures.
PME founder G. Byrum co-founded and directed Community Tech NY, a nonprofit building resilience and self-determination in 10+ communities recovering from floods, outages, isolation, and long-term economic and environmental stresses. CTNY supports development of community-owned information ecosystems by training and supporting local Digital Stewards.
PME founder G. Byrum founded and directed Resilient Communities, a New America program dedicated to communication technologies for disaster response and resilience. We worked in 5 NYC neighborhoods training local residents to build and govern resilient local emergency networks.
PME founder G. Byrum developed and directed the Just Tech Program, a holistic support model to nurture nontraditional technologists, researchers, journalists, and artists creating radically hopeful tech futures.
Greta Byrum is an expert in technologies for digital opportunity, resilience, safety, wellbeing, and imagination. Her work focuses on building infrastructure and technological self-determination with communities to create digital wellbeing instead of exclusion, surveillance, and extraction. She has contributed extensively to research on digital governance, including risks to vulnerable populations and pathways to collective action.
Affiliate
is a data and operations consultant and digital service designer working toward a future where innovation strengthens public systems, empowers communities, and ensures that solutions to the modern era’s evolving challenges serve the public interest.
Affiliate
is a researcher-investigator using technologies and storytelling frameworks to open up community-oriented data frameworks and discourses. Todd is currently a Just Tech Fellow at the Social Science Research Council, teaches at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, and is a radio journalist by training.
Affiliate
is a researcher investigating the social impact of AI systems, leveraging both computational data analytics and digital ethnography to create concrete accounts beyond performance metrics.
Contact us
Have an idea, request for collaboration, or just want to say hello?
Please fill out the form below, and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can! Or email us at hello@presentmoment.tech
