AnchorPhoenix presents
The Belonging Summit
Technology is invited. Humanity is required.
January 14, 2027 · 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Eastern · Online
Foster Care Coded, The Belonging Summit, brings together people with lived experience, foster and adoptive families, practitioners, technologists, creators, researchers, builders, and allies to explore one central question:
How might we create more belonging for people impacted by foster care?
Not only by talking about what is broken, but by imagining, sharing, and building what could be better.
Think differently
What if we approached foster care differently?
Technology is changing almost every part of our lives.
AI. Music. Gaming. Storytelling. Digital communities. Design. Creative technology. New ways of communicating and connecting.
What happens when we bring some of that imagination into foster care?
Not to replace human relationships.To strengthen them.
The summit will explore ideas people can use today, ideas communities can develop together, and possibilities we haven't thought of yet.
- You don't need to be a technologist.
- You don't need a degree.
- You don't need a title.
You need curiosity and a willingness to think differently.
Program
The Day
Rather than organizing the summit around professional disciplines, we're organizing it around human questions.
01
Connect
How might technology and creativity help people find and maintain meaningful relationships?
Community, mentorship, communication, shared experiences, digital connection and tools that help relationships survive transitions.
02
Express
How can people tell their own stories, in their own ways?
Music. Art. Writing. AI-assisted creativity. Photography. Digital storytelling. Games. Media. Expression can be more than communication. It can become a way of being known.
03
Belong
What creates the feeling that “I have a place here”?
Identity, culture, traditions, shared experiences, communities, memory-making and the small things that tell someone they matter.
04
Support
How might systems and technology better support the humans inside them?
Practical tools, thoughtful technology and human-centered approaches that can reduce friction and help important information and relationships travel with people.
05
Reimagine
What haven't we tried yet?
This is where we make room for unexpected ideas. Builders. Creators. Technologists. Young people. Families. Researchers. People with lived experience. Different perspectives belong in the same room.
Ideas in action
Ideas Can Become Experiences
Sometimes technology creates connection in ways we don't immediately think about.
Music + Creativity
Creating a song together can become expression, collaboration and memory-making.
Digital Storytelling
Technology can give people new ways to preserve experiences and tell their own stories.
Community
Online spaces can help relationships continue beyond a single event.
Building Together
Creative technology events and collaborative builds can turn lived experience into new ideas and practical solutions.
An AnchorPhoenix social impact initiative
From an Idea to Second Summer
Second Summer began during a collaborative technology build, asking what could happen when creativity, technology and lived experience came together around one human goal: helping foster families make memories together.
Second Summer is one example of what becomes possible when people from different worlds build around human needs.
AnchorPhoenix is seeking sponsors and partners to help grow initiatives like Second Summer.
Who belongs here
If you care about foster care, you belong in the conversation.
- Foster youth
- Former foster youth
- Adoptees
- Foster parents
- Kinship caregivers
- Families
- Social workers
- Educators
- Clinicians
- Researchers
- Technologists
- Designers
- Developers
- Artists
- Musicians
- Storytellers
- Community builders
- Funders
- Corporate partners
- Allies
Expertise can come from education.
It can also come from living it.
Both belong here.
Beyond the summit
One Day Shouldn't Be the End of the Conversation.
The Belonging Summit is a gathering.
Foster Care Coded is the community that continues afterward.
A place to share ideas, discover tools, connect across disciplines and keep exploring how technology and human creativity might better serve people impacted by foster care.
Sponsors and partners
Help Keep This Accessible.
We want the Belonging Summit, and the Foster Care Coded community surrounding it, to remain accessible. AnchorPhoenix welcomes mission-aligned technology companies, organizations, foundations and partners interested in helping make that possible.
Foster care has enough systems.Let's build more belonging.
January 14, 2027 · 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Eastern · Online
An AnchorPhoenix initiative