I grew up as a third-culture kid between Berlin and Beijing, quickly learning languages and models of the world. My passion for mathematics turned into a passion for the philosophy of mathematics—and the logical consequence of that was studying logical consequences, first over a Philosophy Tripos at Trinity College, Cambridge, then a Masters in Logic at the University of Amsterdam. My thesis on Superplural Logic is a decent summary of my interests: a lot of formal machinery to argue a philosophical point (I don't like sets).

Searching for something more tangible, I joined Open Knowledge Germany in 2015 to support open data efforts, which eventually turned into the field of public interest tech. I was the third member of the Prototype Fund founding team and have since worked with many funders in the space of technology, open source, and public infrastructure.

In that world, I saw first-hand the impact that design and product thinking could have. I joined a tiny agency called Simply Secure led by ex-Silicon Valley consultants advising privacy-enhancing technologies—an incredible environment for learning human-centered design from people who'd honed it in industry, but were motivated by empowering users rather than extracting from them. Over my time there, I worked with over 70 teams in total.

Eventually, I left my post as Program Director and became a freelance consultant, mostly supporting developer teams building decentralized systems. In 2022, I joined the industrial research lab Ink & Switch to advance local-first UX on a project called Upwelling, and experimented with a local-first canvas app called Fullscreen.

I'm active in both developer and design communities, and take a special interest in emergent technologies such as local-first and zero-knowledge. I also offer pro bono consulting to a limited number of projects every year—if you're interested, get in touch.