DCC combines expertise in research, software development, and political organizing to produce accessible and engaging online tools and platforms that facilitate justice work and movements.
Our work focuses on the following impact areas:
Communicating hidden knowledge
Democratizing access to information on marginalized narratives and contemporary issues including policing, incarceration, and debt.
Liberation through learning
Facilitating deep understanding of complex issues impacting BIPOC communities, women, people with disabilities, and LGBTQIA+ people.
Empowering collective action
Providing tools and resources to inspire meaningful structural change.
Who we are
We are a specialized team that has worked together as organizers, researchers, and technologists for nearly a decade. Members of our team have completed data visualizations, developed applications, and contributed to structural change focused on policing and incarceration, college admissions, and student debt.
Celeste is an abolitionist geographer who employs critical qualitative and mapping methods at the intersections of racial, economic, gender, and disability justice work. She works to generate evidence for more livable and equitable geographies by connecting historical narratives, contemporary data, and imaginative visions rooted in experiences of systematically oppressed people.
Celeste wrote the award-winning book How to Lose the Hounds: Maroon Geographies and a World beyond Policing (Duke University Press, 2023) exploring marronage—the practice of flight from and placemaking beyond slavery—as a guide to police abolition. She also co-created the COVID-19 and Cages Mapping Project, an interactive map depicting how US states responded to the first wave of COVID-19, and helped lead the Growing Freedom Project, a partnership with the Down North Foundation to generate evidence-based solutions for food justice among Black working-class and formerly and currently incarcerated Philadelphia residents.
Charlie is a creative, curious, and conscious software developer who strives to build transformative technology that supports people in living autonomous, fulfilled, and safe lives. As an abolitionist, he seeks to find ways to center community, collaboration, and radically empathetic conflict resolution as a response to the ever evolving oppression and repression of our time.
Charlie designed, built, and deployed a feature rich, realtime, cross platform mobile app as the sole developer for a nonprofit aimed at building infrastructure for a world where people can divest from police and invest in community based crisis response teams.
Fred is a seasoned community organizer leveraging his professional expertise in operations and project management to effectively advance justice-oriented initiatives. Through his work, he seeks to create liberatory platforms that prioritize mutual aid and community.
Fred co-founded the Black Praxis Project, a virtual freedom school with a curriculum centered around the analysis of black radical texts. His most recent organizing efforts include working with Debt Collective to orchestrate a nationwide protest on April 4th, 2021, which garnered national media coverage from Teen Vogue and The New York Times and influenced the Biden’s administration’s student debt relief policies.
Tev'n is a software engineer with a background in computational linguistics, data visualization, and archival research. As one of three co-founders of Black Praxis Project (BPP), along with fellow DCC member Fred, he helps design and facilitate political education and mutual aid programs. Tev'n is always open to use his skills to build technology that empowers communities and movements for justice.
We’re all about building connections that drive transformative justice. Whether you’re interested in partnering with us, have questions about our work, or just want to connect — send us a message. We’re ready to explore how we can make change together.
