From Vibe to Viability - A Methodology for Building Transformative Alternatives in the Digital Economy

When care workers in Sydney co-own the app that books their shifts, when artists in Vancouver take back control of their images, when Uber drivers in Denver stop renting the tools of their trade and start owning them, when Indigenous communities in South Africa launch their own WiFi cooperative—these are not isolated acts. They’re part of a global movement to rebuild the digital economy from the ground up.

In this talk, Prof. Trebor Scholz, a leading voice in the global push for democratic digital infrastructure, explores how communities are building alternatives to extractive tech through cooperative experiments across 60+ countries. From AI cooperatives to community-run data centers and food delivery systems powered by 80 worker co-ops, these are functioning systems, not simply conjectures.

Scholz draws a line from 28 weavers in 1840s England to present-day builders reclaiming digital agency. His methodology—combining analysis, organizing, education, and institution-building—has improved the lives of over a million workers, launched the SolidarityTech subfield, and provided practical, real-world alternatives. But failure is part of the story: What happens when democracy cuts into your evenings? When scaling solidarity sparks friction? When burnout hits? When people can’t agree—and you’re still hustling to make the dream real? This talk challenges you to rethink what's possible—and help build a future that doesn’t scale like empires but lasts like communities.

This event is present in partnership with the Digital Ethnography Research Centre at RMIT and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society.