Autonomous
Poly-Technic
Camp
August 22nd → August 31st 2025
DeepMay camps are an immersive experience. Expect delicious communal
meals, group exercise, and time spent in nature and around the fire.
Expect to work hard - you will spend many hours each day in an intensive
learning environment. Expect a great depth of connection forged in the
crucible of difficult problems solved together.
We are seeking participants who are obsessed with questions concerning
technology. We aim to create a pressure-cooker for those with interesting
material objectives. We care about disposition over ideology and curiosity
over experience.
What You'll Learn
Applicants choose between one of four focus areas or tracks, described
below. Each cohort will go deep in their particular subject area and come
together often to compare experiences, share projects, and think together.
Data Analysis
Over the past several decades we have seen whistleblowers leak millions of classified documents of immense importance to social movements and human rights advocates. In the data analysis track we will develop a toolkit for querying and making sense of such unfathomably large treasure troves of information. Throughout the course, students will get hands-on experience with real leaked data sets including those from police departments, fascist groups, militias, a Russian ransomware gang, and social networks. In the process, we’ll touch on a handful of broadly useful tech skills like python and command line programming, docker containers, and SQL databases.
Autonomous Infrastructure
The autonomous infrastructure track will explore how to build community-controlled systems that provide the tools necessary for everyday living and organizing. Students will learn how to set up a server and host open-source versions of widely used platforms like google drive, with an eye towards security & privacy. We will also investigate systems with which we still struggle to regain autonomy and the risks they pose such as phone networks, ISPs, cloud computing platforms, and social media.
Creative & Design
We increasingly see graphic design used as a means of aesthetic enclosure, cementing corporate narratives and foreclosing new ways of understanding our world. But it need not. In this class, students will start from the core elements of visual communication to tell the stories we need, to push in the right direction. Students will delve into graphic design, product design, brand identity, UX/UI, and ad/social campaigns. Students will build on pre-assigned design theory readings and Adobe Creative Suite familiarity and leave with a visual toolkit for ongoing and not-yet-imagined projects. Please bring a mouse.
Digital Security
From the Ring cameras on our porches to the spyware sold by NSO group to governments all over the world, we live in a state of constant surveillance. This technology is routinely weaponized against journalists, organizers, and marginalized groups to silence and incarcerate them. To build more resilient movements we need to learn how to speak without being heard, to move without being seen.
Unlike standard security trainings, our digital security track will move towards a more holistic understanding of privacy beyond just checking boxes and installing a suite of apps. We will dive deep into the underlying technology used to surveil us an provide hands-on experience with a variety of privacy enhancing tools like Tor, Graphene OS, and end-to-end encryption. By the end of the week, students will be able to develop rigorous threat models and deploy the right tools to better protect themselves in a variety of scenarios.
