About – Ivona Kaczynski

“Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way”

— Alan Wilson Watts

I’m a tech manager and wilderness lover who grew up in the Pacific Northwest, where eco-consciousness was cool before it got hip. I was that 6th grader who not only wore wolf shirts and read wolf books, but gave a presentation to my class about the then-endangered species and coordinated a class letter to the governor of Alaska to stop culling the packs. I went on to participate in or start an environmental committee in every school I attended, from grade school, to high school, college and university.

Driven mainly by an insatiable sense of curiosity and desire to experiment, I often find myself enamored with data-oriented/tech solutions to environmental and social issues. My background in ecological science, game development, and interactive hardware development gives me plenty of brain food to chew on day-to-day. I ask myself how we can revamp the Whole Earth Catalog of the 70s in such a way that appeals to society today? I’m simultaneously excited and afraid of the wealth of technology we have available to us to influence the way a population thinks. How can we use our tech for the greatest good?

While the tech around us has developed in marvellous ways, we are now confronting important ethical and existential questions. What will serve as our universal guide in years to come, as philosophies and beliefs are forcibly juxtaposed on technical implementations and vice versa?

To keep myself from getting too disheveled with all of the above, I enjoy running, yoga, animals and getting lost in the woods. Nothing in this world has made me happier than spending time in nature with other living beings, human and non-human. It is my genuine hope that we, as humans, realise our connection with other living beings on earth (and future generations) and try to protect and support the systems that have given us life.