The Future Takes Root: Introducing the Saplings Program

If you want to come to DWeb Camp, bring the whole family! For the first time, DWeb Camp will have a teen program in addition to the children's program run in years past.

These two programs, the Saplings (teenagers) and the Seedlings (children) are part of the Intergenerational Growth track, which seeks to combine the perspectives of the Old Growth and the insights of the New Shoots alike. It will echo the myriad voices of the web - at once wise, innovative, and playful.

At camp, we will make these protocols that govern our lives more transparent, allowing us to explore not only how they work, but how we can change them for a better future.

In more concrete terms, the Saplings program has three primary goals. The first is to demystify tech. Phones have become a staple of teenage life - but for all its familiarity, the device largely remains a black box. Could you explain how a YouTube video actually lands in your phone, or how a text message really reaches you? At camp, we will make these protocols that govern our lives more transparent, allowing us to explore not only how they work, but how we can change them for a better future.

Our learning will be grounded in doing. A sys-admin will guide teens through setting up a server, giving us an understanding of not just how the web works but also the “why” of mesh networks. We will hold a fiber-optic cable and a router while learning what a peer-to-peer system actually is. At camp, the pieces that form the web we know will be laid open for discovery.

The second goal is to instill self-confidence, in both the conceptual and technical realms. We will create science fiction stories, debate against an AI digital twin, and deliberate whether it is the people or the system that would make a decentralized society successful. The Saplings program will give teens the background and the opportunity to think and discuss with each other and with some of the greatest technologists in the field.

Thinking is fun, but so is getting hands-on! At camp, teens will learn to fix bicycles, take soil samples to analyze the ecosystem’s health, and solder their own TV-disabling remote controls. Teens will learn that we have the capacity to think about the issues of society and the web, but also that we have agency to make change ourselves.

Of course, no summer camping experience - even if in the context of a decentralized tech conference - is complete without fun! Learn self-defense from a Chi Gong master, sip tea and play Go in the Chaos Infusion tent, do improv, build dough murals with the Seedlings, and create cyanotype images with the sun. In the evenings teens can go on a hike, play in the pool, or toss a frisbee.

When I first came to DWeb Camp, I was 13. The experience struck me uniquely - the people at camp formed a community driven by a global mission but also grounded by tenderness for each other. It was a place where the old and the new intertwined, with all the lessons of the past and all the ambitions of the future.

This feeling compelled me to volunteer as an assistant Steward the next year, in 2024. Now, after another two years of learning and growing, I want to contribute more greatly to that spirit that makes DWeb Camp unique. My greatest hope is to inspire other teens in the way the people of DWeb have inspired me.

DWeb Camp will be an experience of learning, making, and playing. And not just for the teens.

We hope to see you there!