Gardens, Not Platforms - Factory HTX + IxDA - Speaker Series - Agentic AI UI/UX Consumer Tech Community

​Speaker
Megan Ducote -Oak AI - Co-Founder and Head of Design

Gardens, Not Platforms - Leveraging AI to Design a better future.

​As AI systems take shape, the future of design is being decided. This talk challenges existing design standards, and invites designers to rethink their role: not optimizing platforms, but shaping the conditions where human connection thrives.

​The future is not inevitable, it's designed.

​What We’ll Cover

• ​Understanding today’s AI systems: How current design standards, incentives, and power structures are shaping AI; and the risks of staying on this trajectory.

• ​Why the default future is fragile: What happens when optimization, scale, and extraction become design goals.

• ​Exploring new paradigms: Shifting from platform-centric thinking to relational, human-centered systems.

• ​Relational technology in practice: Real examples of tools and approaches already shaping the future differently - today.

• ​Designing with intention: What this means for designers, builders, organizers and technologists going forward.

​Program
6:00pm Networking
6:30pm Announcements
6:45pm Speaker Megan Ducote - Gardens, Not Platforms
7:15pm Audience Q&A
7:30pm Networking
8:00pm Close

The new "Factory HTX" is the result of merger Interaction Design Association - Houston to provide a community of Agentic AI, UI/UX, and Consumer Tech Startups.

​Free Street Parking After 6pm

​Paid Parking at Greenstreet Garage