We believe people should have agency over technology, not simply be affected by it.

In the late 1990s, South Korea was changing quickly. Technology was becoming part of everyday life, and companies like Samsung and LG were helping move the country into a new era.

Kwon Sub Lee saw that change coming. He believed technology would become one of the defining forces of the future, and that children needed to understand it, not simply grow up around it. Learning to use it could open doors to education, communication, work, and opportunity. So he began teaching children. The idea was simple: help young people become comfortable with the tools that would shape the world they were growing up in.

The belief extended into his own home. His wife, Youngsook Lee, learned how to use a computer, type, and communicate through technology, including in English with people beyond Korea. These were small steps inside an enormous transformation, but they carried a larger lesson.

A belief carried forward

Technology could connect people to a world that once felt far away. It could help someone learn, communicate, and find a new opportunity. And, most importantly, it could be learned.

Decades later, the technology has changed and the questions have become bigger. Children today are growing up among smartphones, algorithms, social platforms, artificial intelligence, and digital systems that influence how they learn, communicate, work, and understand the world around them.

Karina Zhang believes young people deserve more than access to these technologies. They deserve the knowledge and confidence to understand them, the judgment to use them thoughtfully, and the opportunity to use them to create something good. She founded Human × Digital Foundation from that conviction, and from a deep love for children and their potential.

HxDF begins with a simple premise: technology should expand human possibility. Not replace curiosity. Not replace judgment. Not replace people. Give people more ability to learn, create, solve problems, and open doors that might otherwise stay closed.

Building what comes next

Karina is building HxDF with people who bring different perspectives to the same mission. Eric Lee brings experience in operations, technology, systems, and execution from years of founding and running businesses. His perspective is grounded in a practical question: can technology actually make people and organizations more capable? Nicholas Le brings a legal and governance perspective as General Counsel, helping ensure that growth is accompanied by responsibility, trust, and care.

The future should not simply happen to people. People should have the capability to shape it. That work starts with the next generation.

From one generation to another

A father in South Korea saw a technological transformation taking place and believed children needed to be prepared for it. A mother learned to use a computer and discovered new ways to communicate across language and distance. A new generation grew up in a world where technology became inseparable from everyday life. Now HxDF carries that belief into a new era.

The technology is more powerful than it was in the 1990s. The stakes are higher. But the hope is still simple: give people the knowledge to understand technology, the confidence to use it, the responsibility to use it well, and the opportunity to build something better.

That is the work of Human × Digital Foundation. We are beginning in Oakland and the East Bay with young people, families, and community organizations. We are starting small, learning carefully, and building toward a future where technology becomes something people can direct rather than something they simply consume. Every generation inherits a world it did not create. Every generation also gets the chance to improve it.

Open doors. See what becomes possible.