Unplugging from Smartphones and Social Media with Light Phone Founder Kaiwei Tang

Are you constantly getting inundated by notifications from your phone? Do you fondly remember the good-old-days when cellphones were just a tool and not an extension of our personalities? How can we make sure that phones and tech products do not induce anxiety in our lives but can actually improve our living quality? ... In this episode, we talk to Kaiwei Tang, Founder of Light Phone, a product that aims to cater to all your unplugging needs – aesthetically and purposefully. Kaiwei Tang, the CEO and co-founder of LightPhone, hopes to design a product that would give people the opportunity to unplug from the hyperconnected world and eliminate all the distractions from a normal smartphone. One can use a Light Phone for basic utilitarian purposes such as navigation and booking a cab, while remaining disconnected from social media. Kaiwei’s intent behind his entrepreneurial venture is to offer people the peace of mind and a happier lifestyle by eliminating distractions and stress of social media, news, and notifications… In this episode, we also learn about Kaiwei’s entrepreneurial journey of creating such a product. He also discusses how social media has fundamentally altered human values portending a change in the way we generate ideas and connect with other people. We also talk about the purpose of technology in today’s world and what we can do to fix the problem of over-indulgence in our phones. Currently, Kaiwei’s company is based in New Lab in Brooklyn. He started his journey by working as a mobile device product lead for almost 8 years with a background in industrial engineering and product designing. He received his master’s degree in Design and Business from Design IIT, Chicago and became the only designer to ever receive full sponsorship from Google for its design incubator program.