As a community of data practitioners, researchers, tech geeks, sci-fi lovers, scientists and many, many more, we believe in the following:

We intend to use all the tools available to us to transform the culture of current tech and data practices, in order to foster an environment of greater inclusivity, equity and thoughtfulness about the history and future implications of our shared work. We know that many of the tools and ways of thinking which are most valuable for this were created outside of the tech world we know so well.

We believe that we must connect with artists, writers, directors, comic creators, philosophers, and creative figures from a variety of fields, disciplines, and media, in order to learn about and explore new, inclusive and diverse imagined futures.

We wish to imagine a future that looks different from the present we know now, and perhaps even to use this vision to inform and guide our present-day behavior.

We crave stories that include paradigms outside of mainstream science fiction. This means that, for example, we want to see groups of Voyagers collaborating to save the world rather than a lone hero. Alternatively, we want to see narratives that place less emphasis on the work of individuals or even small groups, and instead place greater emphasis on worldbuilding, and complex global systems and balances that form and evolve over generations.

We want to see queer-bodied characters. We want to see a world where neither ethnicity, nor nationality nor culture nor gender is tokenized or colonized.

We write so that we can inhabit a variety of perspectives, and so that we can be empowered to listen and act with care, compassion, intelligence and empathy when presented with a technological problem.

We also feel empowered by the ways that technology connects us globally and wish to use the plurality of experiences to create, question and share speculative stories.

We want to have fun and exercise our imagination.