Talks and workshops on what changed in 2025 — why non-technical people can now build civic and local economic tools, and what that means for communities.
The cost of building software hit zero. Non-technical people — doctors, road engineers, shop owners, lawyers — started building real tools between patients, between customers, on the road. This talk shows what that looks like, why it matters, and what happens next when communities start owning their own digital infrastructure.
Social innovation Civic tech Open sourceRob Hopkins created a model where communities self-organize around food and energy. Grassroots Hoppers applies the same logic to software: build it, document it, replicate it city by city. This talk maps the Transition model onto community-owned digital tools and shows why the pattern works.
Cooperative economy Transition network Movement buildingA solo founder with no technical background is building two retail intelligence tools in a 5-day public hackathon — a sales prediction engine and an interactive workflow map. This talk is the honest story in progress: what is working, what is breaking, and what this already proves about the future of small-business software.
Entrepreneurship Building in public Retail techA hands-on session where participants go from a community need to a working software prototype in 3 hours. No coding experience required. Using no-code and AI-assisted development tools, each participant or team builds a real tool they can take home and deploy.
Best for: Community organizations, social innovation events, local government workshops, cooperative networks, Transition Town groups.
Group size: 8–30 participants. Each participant needs a laptop.
Send a note with your event name, date, format, and expected audience.