A new technology lab for childhood

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We are building free, thoughtful software that helps children create, learn, and explore without ads, attention traps, or unnecessary data collection. Parents are helping choose what comes first.

Tell us what should exist Meet MakeJoy Labs

Free to use
No advertising
Privacy first
Open source

✦ ✦

What will you make today?

Why MakeJoy Labs exists

Technology can be better than a feed.

Children should learn how to create with technology, not only how to consume through it.

Many products are designed to collect attention, behavioral data, or purchases. We want to build the alternative parents keep looking for.

Every MakeJoy Labs project must help a child create, understand, explore, or solve something meaningful.

Why I am starting this

Technology helped shape my life. I want children to experience its best side.

I grew up playing RuneScape. It was not perfect, but it introduced me to technology, problem solving, economics, online communities, and even how to recognize when something was too good to be true. Those experiences helped lead me into a career in technology.

Now, with my daughter Madelynne on the way, I hear parents wondering whether the safest answer is to keep technology away from children entirely. I believe we can build a better answer: technology that prepares children to participate, create, and think without treating their attention as a product.

Matthew, founder of MakeJoy Labs

Our first app

A simple drawing space made for creating.

We are starting with a web drawing app children can use with a finger, mouse, or stylus. It will begin in the browser and can grow into a dedicated app for phones and tablets as families help us improve it.

Create

Drawing, animation, storytelling, music, building, and playful invention.

Explore

Science, systems, language, worlds, and questions children can investigate.

Solve

Puzzles and games that reward thought, curiosity, and learning instead of spending.

The trust promise

Good technology starts with clear boundaries.

These are product requirements, not marketing language. If an idea breaks the promise, we redesign it.

Respect attention

No endless feeds, artificial urgency, or rewards designed to keep children from stopping.

Collect less

Prefer local saves, minimal permissions, and no account whenever the product can work without one.

Keep it open

Publish the source so families and contributors can inspect, improve, and preserve the work.

Make something

Design every experience around curiosity, creativity, problem solving, and meaningful play.

The path to our first public release

Listen closely. Build the drawing app in the open. Launch when it is ready.

Friends and family are the first circle. The larger public announcement comes with a real product families can try, inspect, and help improve.

01
Listen
Learn what families need from a creative drawing experience.
02
Design
Define a small, safe drawing app around the needs families share.
03
Test
Build the web app and improve it with a small group of families.
04
Grow
Release the web app, publish how it works, and prepare a dedicated app when it is ready.

How this can stay sustainable

Support should fund the mission, never purchase a child’s attention.

MakeJoy Labs is founder supported while it gets started. Future support may include individual contributions, grants, and carefully reviewed sponsorships.

Sponsors may be recognized in parent facing materials, but they will not place ads inside children’s products, access family data, or control what we teach and build.

Ask us a question

This is the beginning

Help us give children something better to do with technology.

Share your idea

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