Holistic Tech: Designing Systems That Care

Rai Gethers | Human-centred Strategist and Founder at Holistic+Kin

Rai Gethers is a human-centered strategist, and the founder of Holistic+Kin—a platform dedicated to advancing inclusive innovation and holistic well-being. With a background in UX and accessibility-focused design, Rai bridges the gap between technology and humanity, ensuring digital systems serve people with empathy and equity at the core. Her work centers Black experiences, lived expertise, and cultural responsiveness to create tools, programs, and experiences that promote sustainable impact and psychological safety. Known for her transparency, creativity, and radical compassion, Rai speaks and designs at the intersection of tech, culture,and wellness.

Abstract

What if our digital systems didn’t just work, but also care? In this talk, I’ll introduce the concept of Holistic Tech—a human-centered approach to UX that centers emotional wellness, accessibility, and cultural context in the design process. This idea was born from years of navigating systems that weren’t designed for people like me and witnessing the ways harm, overwhelm, and exclusion are baked into even the most “usable” digital experiences.

I’ll share how I’ve used UX methods to bring care and intentionality into health, advocacy, and community-based platforms. We’ll look at what happens when we start asking better design questions—not just how do we get users through this flow, but how does this interaction make them feel, heal, or harm?

This talk will invite attendees to rethink what it means to design for humans in a world that desperately needs more compassion baked into its systems.