01 · About
I’m David Hagman, a Creative Technologist who has spent more than two decades building systems, products and teams.
This site is where I share a lifelong ongoing story about curiosity, sustainability, and the belief that technology can help make peace between people and the planet. Here I think, build, and write in public. Driven by my insatiable hunger to remain curious, make useful things, and share what I discover.
I build things because I’m curious about what can be done. I share what I learn because it might help someone else. Some things might become proper products or services, where as others become a useful note, an interesting conversation, a better question or simply something I enjoyed making.
I’m particularly interested in how technology and the climate crisis are shaping everyday lives, organisations and the living world. Sustainability is the lens through which I examine both, asking not only what can be built, but what should endure.
02 · Beliefs
What I believe.
Four principles that shape what I build, how I work and what I consider worth pursuing. I contribute what I can, where I can.
Technology opens new possibilities.
Curiosity begins with asking what if. Making helps me discover what might come next and who it could serve.
Experience teaches us what truly works in the real world.
Making something is one way of asking whether an idea holds up. Its value becomes clearer when people begin using it in everyday life.
Sustainability is how we decide what's worth building.
Every project uses resources and leaves consequences behind. I want what I build to create better choices rather than quietly remove them.
The living world reminds us that the future is not just about us, but everything that we share this planet with
Human life depends on the living world, yet many of the systems we have built continue to work against it. What we build next should help restore that relationship and keep better futures possible.
03 · The pattern
How I got here.
My career is not a series of separate chapters mapped out in advance. It is a continuous expansion of how I understand systems, people and change. It has taught me that lifelong learning is fundamental to creating better futures for ourselves and others. If I could offer one piece of advice, it would be to stay curious and learn from what you do, the people you meet and what happens around you.
Infrastructure and software
Learning systems from the ground up, from keeping servers running to writing software that had to perform reliably under pressure.
Data systems and engineering leadership
Building pipelines, reducing transaction times and helping systems process around 1.5 billion observations each day.
Product leadership and transformation
Leading teams, products and change across international organisations while connecting technical decisions with human outcomes.
Architecture and sustainable practice
Applying systems thinking to public healthcare, scalable architecture and the practical work of making technology more responsible.
Independent work
Turning two decades of experience into an independent practice, building accessible publishing tools, exploring sustainable technology and sharing what I learn in public.
The recurring pattern
- Enter a complicated system.
- Understand how its parts affect one another.
- Find where change matters.
- Improve the technology and how people work.
- Leave something more capable and resilient behind.
That pattern matters more to me than any title.
04 · What I’m doing here
Thinking and building in public.
Curiosity is where I think and build in public. I write notes about current technology, share practical ways to begin with sustainable technology and design, and explore sustainability questions that deserve more attention in boardrooms and political institutions.
I’m interested not only in what comes next, but in what should. I explore the technologies, choices and relationships shaping our future and how they might help keep better futures possible for people and the living world. And sometimes I write about the small, ordinary things that catch my curiosity. I’m human, after all.
I’m not here to perform certainty. I’m here to remain curious, make useful things and share what I discover.
05 · Sustainability
Keeping better futures possible.
Sustainability gives direction to what we choose to build and what we choose to leave behind.
I was born when atmospheric carbon dioxide was about 332 PPM. That number matters to me because it places one life inside a much larger story.
In A Brief History of the Future, I saw residents of Yahaba, Japan, put on ceremonial robes and speak as representatives of generations not yet born. They gathered to make decisions for their town while considering the people who would one day inherit them. One result was an agreement to raise the local water tax to repair ageing infrastructure, a difficult choice in the present that would leave something better for the future.
The segment lasted only a few minutes, but it has stayed with me ever since. Sustainability was not presented as a distant ambition. It was neighbours sitting together, accepting a little more responsibility today so that others would not inherit the cost tomorrow. One town cannot change the world alone, but it can change what happens within its reach and show what becomes possible when the future is given a place at the table.
06 · Building now
What I’m building now.
Here is what currently has my attention. I’m sharing it partly to keep myself honest, but curiosity does not always follow a plan. Some things may become products or services; others may lead somewhere useful, surprising or entirely different. No guarantees.
Curiosity Ongoing
A personal publication for thinking, writing and learning in public about technology, sustainability and better futures.
Ghost themes Building
Useful, expressive and accessible themes that help independent publishers create spaces of their own.
Sustainable technology and design Exploring
Practical guidance and experiments that help people make more deliberate technological choices.
This site is part of the work.
My collaborator and I designed and built the theme powering Curiosity to be expressive without making participation conditional on motion, a mouse or any particular way of browsing.
Accessibility is not an enhancement here. It is part of what good technology means.
The playful interactions demonstrate what can be built. The safeguards ensure that everyone can take part.
