Liberatory
Intelligence
Laboratories
Scroll to explore
About LIL Co.
/ Venture Lab + studio
Liberatory Intelligence Laboratories, Co. (LIL Co.) is the organizational body responsible for developing, applying, and stewarding the discipline of Post-Imperial Systems Intervention & Design (PSID).
It exists to design, build, and sustain systems that restore and extend human agency, institutionalize care, and instantiate collective coordynamics to resist the structural reproduction of domination through infrastructure.
We work in two integrated modes:
Venture Laboratory
The discipline is applied, tested, and evolved through real systems. The Lab supports internal initiatives and selective co-creation, so we can validate new architectures without collapsing the practice into consultancy.
Venture Studio
We originate and co-found ventures shaped by the discipline, where governance, incentives, ownership, and legitimacy are in scope from the start, not retrofitted later.
/ Domains
We work across:
- Venture origination and co-founding
- Platform and protocol design
- Governance and incentive architecture
- Technical and organizational system design
- Institutional and ecosystem formation
Engagements are long-horizon, equity-aligned where appropriate, and require deep architectural involvement. Not all opportunities qualify.
Discipline
/ PSID
Post-Imperial Systems Intervention & Design (PSID) is an emerging discipline. It is concerned with the design, intervention, and stewardship of socio-technical systems after and against imperial and techno-imperial domination.
The discipline integrates critical theory, systems thinking, political economy, and applied design: we diagnose how power operates inside institutions and organizations, then design interventions that reform, redesign, or replace the structures that reproduce domination.
The point is not symbolic resistance. The work is durable counter-infrastructure, systems that restore and extend human agency, institutionalize care, and instantiate collective coordynamics, so domination is not structurally reproduced through infrastructure.
Core commitments
Under PSID, every system we design, build, and sustain is held to four structural commitments:
Agency
Systems must restore and extend people's ability to understand, contest, and exit the conditions that govern them.
Care
Care must be institutionalized, encoded into governance, incentives, and capital flows as a structural obligation, not a stated value.
Coordination
Systems must instantiate collective coordynamics, enabling legitimate, efficient coordination toward viable shared aims.
Non-Domination
Systems must resist the structural reproduction of domination, extraction, and capture, especially under scale, capital pressure, and institutional force.
Work
/ What we're building
Core Systems
/ Infrastructure
UPND
Universal Protocol for Non-dominative Determination
CRVCT
Transforming validated participation into economic capital
Originated Ventures
/ Emerging systems
neoma
Translating social signals into collective coordination
Primori
Venture formation infrastructure for high-potential outliers.
Startup formation network for female technical talent
Spatial thinking environment for knowledge work
Co-Founded Ventures
ALAO
Digital asset and estate planning platform for creators
MIMIYA
Health and wellness system for postpartum cognitive support
Team
/ People & Partners
M.J. Zilla
/ Founder + Chief Architect
M.J. Zilla is the founder of Liberatory Intelligence Laboratories, Co., a founding practitioner of Post-Imperial Systems Intervention & Design (PSID), and the originator of Applied Liberatory Intelligence (ALI).
With over 15 years of experience across advertising design, product design engineering, and socio-technical coordination, M.J.'s work at LIL Co. centers Liberatory Reconstruction: the practice of intervening in how platforms, protocols, and institutional systems reproduce domination at scale, and deliberately redesigning them to preserve human agency, protect civil liberties, and enable collective self-determination.
As Chief Architect, M.J. is responsible for maintaining canonical integrity across PSID and ALI, guiding methodological evolution, and overseeing the design of technologies, protocols, and systems developed across both studio partnerships and internal lab initiatives.
MoCADA
/ Strategic Partner + Fiscal Sponsor
In partnership with The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA), a trusted and community-anchored institution in Central Brooklyn, Liberatory Intelligence Laboratories, Co. develops tools, publications, and programs that translate liberatory theory into applied infrastructure.
Together, this partnership supports applied research, public-facing publications, workshops, and AI-enabled workforce pathways for low-income and underrepresented communities. The work directly addresses systemic barriers to economic mobility by establishing a community-rooted pipeline into the technology sector grounded in education, accountability, and long-term institutional trust.
Join LIL Co.
/ A Pathway to Liberatory Reconstruction
We are building a discipline-led collective of practitioners committed to designing, implementing, and stewarding systems aligned with Post-Imperial Systems Intervention & Design (PSID).
Joining LIL Co. is not employment in the traditional sense. It is entry into a practice grounded in restoring and extending human agency, institutionalizing care, and instantiating collective coordynamics.
We are looking for individuals who can operate across systems, not just within roles. Designers, engineers, researchers, and strategists who are capable of working at the level of infrastructure, governance, and coordination.
NOTE: Advancement within the Liberatory Intelligentsia is earned through demonstrated alignment, contribution, and disciplined application of PSID and Applied Liberatory Intelligence over time.
Modes of Contribution
Distinct ways practitioners engage in building, shaping, and sustaining discipline-aligned systems:
Engineering & Infrastructure
Developers, systems architects, DevOps engineers, and security specialists responsible for building the technical foundations of systems, including protocols, platforms, and infrastructure that enable reliable, scalable, and secure operation.
Design & Experience
Product designers, UX researchers, visual designers, and design strategists responsible for shaping how systems are understood, navigated, and experienced, ensuring clarity, usability, and alignment between system behavior and human interaction.
Systems & Coordination
Product managers, researchers, and coordination designers responsible for structuring governance, incentives, and participation, shaping how systems align actors, distribute power, and enable legitimate, effective coordination.
Stewardship & Operations
System operators, program leads, and institutional stewards responsible for deploying, maintaining, and evolving systems under real-world conditions, ensuring durability, continuity, and alignment over time.
Let's
Connect
/ Get in touch
New York, NY