The name
is the argument.
How a forced detour became the whole point.
The // DoubleSlash began as Project Code // Switch — named for code-switching, the practice BIPOC and LGBTQ+ youth perform daily just to survive systems that were never designed for them.
It was the right name for the work. But when it came time to claim the space, the name ran into a wall: a dominant institution had already taken the ground, covering the same subject from a position smaller, equity-focused voices couldn't compete with.
That's not a footnote. That's the thesis playing out in real time — a marginalized project pushed out of the room by an institution that got there first. The exact dynamic our research exists to name.
So we did what the work demands of everyone we build with. We didn't wait for permission, and we didn't shrink the vision to fit. We took the most powerful, most original piece of the name — the // — and built something that couldn't be taken.
A code commentThe human voice written inside the machine. The part the system doesn't execute — but the part a person left there on purpose.
An activation markThe flip from passive user to author.
A reversalFrom subjects of broken systems to designers of equitable ones.
We hit the barrier our research describes, adapted, and came out with a name that means more than the one we started with.
Youth as authors,
not afterthought.
That's not a tagline. It's how we got our name.
AI is already speaking to teens. The // DoubleSlash brings BIPOC and LGBTQ+ youth into the room where these tools get built — as co-designers, not test subjects.