• From sustainability to regeneration
• A new way of seeing
• What I learned along the way
• An internet that gives back
• The next Step
• An invitation

§From sustainability to regeneration

In recent decades, society has become increasingly aware of sustainability. Some approach it with genuine care for people and the planet. Others mainly because it sounds good in reports or marketing, while the way of working behind it largely remains the same.

Sustainability often focuses on limiting harm: less emissions, less waste, less dependency. That is valuable, if driven by real conviction, but it can be applied much more thoughtfully and consciously.

What the world actually needed was something else: not just less pollution, but more life. Not just balance, but renewal.

§A new way of seeing

Regenerative thinking begins with a simple but powerful question: how can what we create contribute to a healthier society instead of depleting it?

That applies not only to agriculture or energy, but also to technology. Because our digital ecosystem faces the same issues as our soil: exhaustion, centralization, and dependency.
We move through the internet every day, but increasingly it feels as if we’re working on ground that isn’t ours. Major platforms like Microsoft LinkedIn, Facebook, and TikTok decide what we see, what we can share, and how we connect with one another. Their algorithms guide our behavior, not to strengthen connection, but to capture attention and maximize profit. These so-called Big Tech platforms don’t build sustainable or regenerative systems, but ones that run on triggers, data, and addiction. They keep us within their walls, as if we’re guests in their world rather than our own. Everything we share, build, or discover feeds their growth, not ours.

§What I learned along the way

During my work with Dilmah, an ethical tea brand from Sri Lanka, I discovered that technology can also be gentle. A website doesn’t only have to be fast and efficient; it can also be kind to people and the planet. Together we built a digital environment that ran as cleanly, efficiently, and accessibly as possible.

At Seats2meet, where the Permanent Future Lab was also born, I saw how technology can become a social engine. People came together, shared knowledge, and experimented with open hardware, open knowledge, and open collaboration. No walls, just possibilities. It felt like a living laboratory of abundance, where technology was truly open to anyone who wanted to participate.

That way of working is what I call regenerative: using technology to strengthen relationships, knowledge, and energy rather than deplete them.

After the 2008 financial crisis, there seemed to be room for a new kind of value: social capital, collaboration, sharing. But when the markets recovered, the old rhythm of capitalism returned. More people went back to fixed jobs and rejoined the rat race.

Yet in recent years, I’ve felt something shifting again. There’s a growing unease among people, a sense that things can and must be different. That there’s something wrong with a system that only asks for more, while so many long for meaning, balance, and connection.

§An internet that gives back

But it can be different. An open internet, built on shared protocols instead of closed platforms, shows that collaboration doesn’t require central control. When we design the rules for communication, data, and ownership together, something new emerges: a network that restores itself through the way we use it. A digital ecosystem that grows as a living whole, built on trust rather than control.

§The next Step

I would love to keep building on that idea with people from communities like Wonders of Work and other open networks. To create technology that doesn’t belong to a single party, but to everyone involved. Technology that not only connects, but restores.

Together we explore and develop AI that learns from local knowledge, runs energy-efficiently, and can share data openly without ownership or control. This forms the foundation for a matching system that connects people within and beyond Wonders of Work, not through ads, but through values, talents, and trust.

We also work on circular hardware: modular devices that are repairable and shareable. Small pieces of technology that can be distributed among co-workers, communities, and beyond, forming a network owned by all of us. No more data held by a single organization, but carried collectively by everyone who participates.

§An invitation

Regenerative technology isn’t a dream of the future, it’s something that has been growing underground for years. In labs, communities, and networks where people are building something fairer, more open, and more human.

We can all contribute in our own way. My way is to help shape the digital world, share knowledge, and support people in connecting their intrinsic value to what they do. I also contribute to economic models that place people and the planet at the center again.

Curious? Visit jurjendevries.com to connect in your own way, or join an upcoming Tech Tuesday at Wonders of Work.

Because ultimately, regenerative technology isn’t about systems, it’s about people finding their flow again. With each other, with their environment, and with what they create.