Keynote: Mormons and Tech
Jake Spurlock, a software engineer at Wired, examines how technology has historically disrupted religion—from the Gutenberg press enabling the Reformation to the internet challenging institutional control over information. He traces this pattern through Mormon history, from the printing of the Book of Mormon to the church's contemporary efforts to manage its online presence through search engine optimization. Spurlock argues that in an age when "information wants to be free," the church must embrace transparency and education rather than attempting to control the message, ultimately suggesting that truth emerges triumphant through open competition in the marketplace of ideas.

Jake Spurlock is a software engineer with a passion for the intersection of technology and culture. He previously worked at Wired Tech, where he oversaw digital publishing, content management, and web performance. Prior to his role at Wired, Jake led web development at Maker Media, managing the digital presence of Make Magazine and Maker Faire. He is a graduate of Utah Valley University, where he earned a degree in digital media. ¶ Originally from Utah, Jake now resides in the Bay Area with his wife and three children. He presented on “Mormons and Tech” at the Sunstone West 2016 conference, exploring the potential impact of emerging technologies—such as augmented reality devices like Microsoft’s HoloLens—on modern living and Mormon culture. Jake was encouraged to speak at the event by Lindsay, who also works with Sunstone. He originally presented at the Sunstone Symposium in Salt Lake.
Transcript
Speaker 1
All right, we are going to get started with our keynote speaker. We have Jake Spurlock. Thank you. He is going to present Mormons and Tech. Jake is a software engineer on the Wired Tech team overseeing digital digital publishing, content management and web performance. Prior to his work at Wired, Spurlock led web development at Maker Media, overseeing Make Magazine and Maker Fair. He has a degree in digital media from Utah Valley University, and while originally a Utah native, he currently lives in the Bay Area with his wife and three kids. Jake did offer to do two truths and a lie, but sorry, we don’t have time. Just a reminder: there are these little yellow flyers out here where there is a. Gathering afterward, the location and everything is in it. If you would like to continue and talk and continue the conversation, we would love to have everybody come and Bring a food or drink to share, but there are yellow sheets out there when everything’s finished. Jake.
Jake Spurlock
Hello, and thank you for staying. I know we are all tired. hungry and have had way too much of this. So let’s just get this over with and we can go to the effort party, okay?
Jake Spurlock
Is Lind Lindsay’s here? I just want everybody let’s give Lindsay a big hand. Many of you know Lindsay. She’s really the one behind all of this and our behind many of the amazing things that Sunstone and other groups do. She’s a great friend and I’m really Grateful for everything.
Jake Spurlock
So, um, so today, well, I just gotta back up and say, uh, last summer. at the Sunstone Symposium in Salt Lake. I I’d been bugging Lindsay for a long time. I’m like, so last year was in San Diego. We ought to do it in the Bay Area. Thank you. We should do it in the Bay Area this year for the selfish reason of I didn’t want to have to travel to the Sunstone West Symposium. And she said that’s a great idea, and you should be the keynote. And I was like, well, that’s really funny, because that’s not what I signed up for. Said, we should do it in the Bay Area. And somehow I got roped into this. But I do think I have something interesting to say, and we’ll see if that’s true in about 10 minutes.
Jake Spurlock
So I work for Wired magazine. If you’re not familiar with Wired, Wired’s a tech publication. It’s definitely a male, upper-middle-class centered, high-household income. And what we like to talk about is cool gadgets and also how technology shapes modern living.
Jake Spurlock
This slide here, this is the Microsoft HoloLens. Is anybody familiar with it? A few hands. The gist is it’s an augmented reality device. You wear this and then it projects in front of you. It could be a movie. Like you could say, I want to watch a movie on this wall right here, and it will make it so that a movie is on the wall. You could put 3D modeling in front of you. It could do all kinds of certain things. And given this is totally a prototype right now. Like, it’s not a commercial device, but it’s something that Microsoft is working on. And it’s really kind of taking the tech industry by storm. It’s a really interesting product.
Jake Spurlock
And my goal here is to look at current technology and then specifically the state of web affairs, but also look at it under the, in essence, a lens of Mormonism. This is Joseph Smith with the breastplate and looking glasses that he used to translate the Book of Mormon. Similar, augmented reality, also in the form of Google Glass. Anyways, just it’s just interesting, that’s all.
Jake Spurlock
Is anybody from not the Bay Area? A lot of that’s that’s great. Like I’m not from the Bay Area. And so I’m kind of like fascinated by the Bay Area and Mormonism together. Who knows who the the Mormon settlers in the Bay Area were? Does anybody read that one back page in the Book of Mormon that’s like the map, and there’s that long dotted line that goes all the way around Cape Horn, the Brooklyn, right? So, just a little bit of like, I’m the keynote, so I can talk whatever I want, okay? So, we’re going to talk about this for a minute.
Jake Spurlock
In 1846 is when the July 31st, 1846, is when the first Mormon settlers landed here well, not here here, but like there, here, in Yurba Buena, which was later renamed San Francisco. It took them about six months to travel from New York to San Francisco. And when they landed here, the Mexican flag was lowered and the American flag was hoisted. And it became an American territory. It was 1846. A couple years later, gold was found. Anyone know the story of Sam Brannon? Kind of a cool, that could be an entire keynote, too, about San Francisco Mormon history. But he found, like, there was gold found, stuff was written, and like 140 years later, like, we have another Mormon in San Francisco. doing stuff.
Jake Spurlock
Many people may not know this, but here at the Pacific School of Religion is actually where Sunstone was founded. It was in 1974 when Scott Kenney he was attending here at the PSR He went home to the University of Utah. He was attending his the singles ward at the University of Utah when he met his a friend, Peggy Fletcher Stack. Well, sorry, sorry, Peggy Fletcher at the time. Peggy Fletcher was teaching the gospel doctrine class. And it was between them they started this like mailing group basically. They said, we’ve got ideas. We’ve got things that we need to share with people. And Scott, he said, I’ve been thinking of the best way to set up a communications network. This may sound far fetched to you, but here’s my idea. A collaborative publication to come out at least four times a year with a rather unstructured, at least to begin with, format consisting primarily of short articles on any Mormon-related subject. He said, I envisioned an experimental journey by and for graduate students and young professionals who are too intimidated by dialogue’s high academic and literary standards to venture into that arena, and nevertheless had exciting experiences. To share. It was incredibly naive and completely unworkable. And I like to think that I’m adding to the intimidated by dialogue’s high academic and literary standards by just going. Off the cuff here. So, like, literally, here is where Sunstone came from.
Jake Spurlock
And they said from mid-August to early November 1974, naming the journal, because at that time it wasn’t a magazine, it was a journal. this quarterly journal. On naming the journal was the primary item on the agenda of our weekly and sometimes biweekly meetings. That task alone outlasted some of the editors Amid much laughter we tried the Vineyard, Rough Draught, Chrysalis, The Mormon Student, Stradivarius, Whetstone, my favorite, the Nouveau Expositor, The Harbinger, and sundry others.
Jake Spurlock
The first product that came out of Sunstone then was the a Mormon history calendar. It was my understanding it was the 76th calendar year, but I could be wrong on this. If you know, please let me know, and it will become part of the unofficial history. or something. Seventy nine? Before yeah, definitely before seventy nine, ‘cause that’s a picture of seventy seven and that’s a picture of seventy nine. So so definitely true.
Jake Spurlock
This is my father-in-law, Bill, who was also here at Berkeley at the Same time. In January 1975, Peggy Fletcher began her work in art religion here at the Graduate Theological Union, and for the next 12 years, she and Stone Stone will be virtually synonymous. And in doing a little bit of research, I found this old picture of Peggy with a bottle of Dr. Pepper, and it’s kind of my favorite thing ever. She’s a bit of a personal hero
Jake Spurlock
So today though, like this is where my real talk kind of starts. I want to talk about disruption and innovation. specifically about technology and Mormonism.
Jake Spurlock
Does anybody know Clayton Christensen? He’s kind of famous in business circles, maybe not in academic circles. Like Mormonism. But he went to BYU, he’s Mormon, he’s at Harvard Business School. And he said, a disruptive innovation is an innovation that creates a new market and value network and eventually disrupts an existing market and value network. Displacing established market leaders and alliances. You can think about that a lot with technology.
Jake Spurlock
Right now in San Francisco, if you need to get from point A to point B. you don’t necessarily call a cab. Instead, you use Uber or Lyft. Those ride sharing economies are disrupting these the attack The taxi industry hates it because they’re taking this established piece of economic, whatever they are, and saying, there’s a new leader in town, and we’re totally disrupting what used to be the standard.
Jake Spurlock
You could also look further at like the camcorder and the calculator and the calendar and your desktop phone. All of that’s kind of like wrapped into an iPhone. And furthermore, like with a camera, like Kodak was totally disrupted by digital photography. So like th there there’s this kind of continual cycle of disruption.
Jake Spurlock
In fact, here in San Francisco, there’s another publication, not nearly as cool as Wired, but another publication called TechCrunch, and they have an annual event called TechCrunch. Disrupt. And the entire point of Tech Runch Disrupt is to find companies that are there to disrupt. They will literally prize, give awards to these companies that they can find that are going to disrupt other economies. And it’s held and a lot of people show up.
Jake Spurlock
Uh one thing to know too, just as far as disruption goes, conti like, when you’re doing it right, you should be continually disrupting yourself. You probably cannot read this at all from the stand, but I’ll just explain it. The red line is the iPod line. the blue line is the iPhone line, the yellow line is the iPad line, and then the green line at the bottom that’s mostly flat is the Mac line. These are Apple unit sales. So this is how many devices Apple sells from I can’t read it. 2006 to now.
Jake Spurlock
So we start off, like, a lot of us remember the iPod as like just the most amazing technology. Product, you know, and it just did amazing things, and it catapulted Apple out of the brink of failure. Like, Apple is about to fail hard. And we feel like that’s what really catapulted them. Success. But when you look at the red line, it’s gradual, but it’s not a hockey stick. It’s a gradual line. And then, when it hits its apex, there is a decline. And the decline becomes from the disruption of the iPhone. So as product lines go, Apple, among others, are seeking to continually create disruptive innovation.
Jake Spurlock
Now, as we look at religion, and we look at Mormonism specifically, there’s also technology that disrupts. And we’re going to start with the Gutenberg Press.
Jake Spurlock
The Gutenberg Press was the greatest product to come out of the 15th century. Instead of manually copying, you guys all know this. Instead of manually copying the Bible by hand in Latin, it was able to be mass-produced with the press. What’s that? In German. Yes, thank you. When we have this technological innovation, it allows for disruption.
Jake Spurlock
Martin Luther famously nailed his theses of why everything about the Catholic, not everything Everything, but why many things of the Catholic Church were wrong? Up onto the board. So, once again, technology follows disruption.
Jake Spurlock
Next up is the Common English Press. This is something that would have been in America for the printing of poor Richard’s Almanac and for the printing of leaflets and tracts that would help lead to revolution here in America.
Jake Spurlock
Is Lindsay still here? Out. Because I put this slide just for her. It’s John McNaughton, his Clive and Bundy vote. So anyways, that’s w we don’t need to talk about it. I mean, it’s not good. The next major technolog I I d I put this slide just for you, but don’t worry about it. Okay. Yeah.
Jake Spurlock
The next major uh innovation that came to printing was the Acorn Press. As we became a more industrial nation, we had better access Materials like steel rather than the wood-framed printing presses. This is what we would have had in Palmyra, where at the Grandin print shop where the Book of Mormon was printed.
Jake Spurlock
Now, the cool thing about the Book of Mormon is we can look at this as another form of disruption and innovation. The Book of Mormon totally disrupted American Religion. With the Book of Mormon and the subsequent church that was created, it totally disrupted everything.
Jake Spurlock
And then, once again, that same technology, though, if we look back at that original definition by uh Clayton Christensen. It allows anybody with it to disrupt anybody with technology. And so the same tool that disrupted American religion would then disrupt the original Disruptor with the printing press of the novel expositor. So we can say that, like, a newspaper that had one issue and one just was printed one time was then disrupted. Mormonism. So we’re going to fast forward a little bit and talk a little bit about some more current tech
Jake Spurlock
I want to fast forward to 1993 because two kind of key important things happened. First was Boyd K. Packer, and this came up in the movie earlier today: that the dangers I speak of come from the gay lesbian movement, the feminist movement, and the ever-present challenge. From the so-called scholars or intellectuals. And I just want to say hi to all of you. I’m so glad you’re all here.
Jake Spurlock
So, this was set in 1993, and then at the same time, Tim Berners-Lee was working on the what would eventually become the Netscape web browser. So the Internet had kind of been created at this point, but it wasn’t really like what we know of what a web browser is. At this point, it was like a collection of links where you could download assets. So imagine more like FTP or something like that.
Jake Spurlock
And just a couple of Tim Berners-Lee quotes because he’s kind of a fascinating individual. He says: Anyone who lost track of time when using a computer knows the propensity to dream, the urge to make dreams come true, and the tendency to miss lunch. And I think about that a lot in thinking about religion on the internet. The propensity to dream, the urge to make dreams come true. No, that’s the part I want to call out there.
Jake Spurlock
He said web users also want to get a data quickly and easily. And so like when we’re on the Internet, we don’t want to be slowed down. Amazon knows that by the milliseconds, like if you can shave milliseconds off of page load times, you can increase conversions. And by increasing conversions, you make more money. And yada, yada, yada. And so Amazon sells me a lot of crap. Also says sites need to be able to interact in one single universal space.
Jake Spurlock
And I think the point that he’s trying to make here, and I also want to make at the same time, is you cannot close out information. Information wants to be free. And the Internet is a great thing for that because you can put up whatever you want. And it wants to be free.
Jake Spurlock
So as a result, like, this is the internet. Like, we get everything we want. We do our awesome happy dance. Literally shoots rainbows at us sometimes. But at the same time, the church has to respond to certain Stuff. While many people get rainbows shot at them, we get the essays like Plural Marriage and Kurt Linden Augu.
Jake Spurlock
This is what really kind of shook me really bad about a year and a half ago. I had been reading, trying to like learn a lot about Joseph Smith when I came across this article at Disneyland last year. And I want to d show and hopefully highlight some of the things that the church is trying to do to inoculate or Get the message out to members. And this is how they’re changing things, I think, for people in the future.
Jake Spurlock
I want to show you a slide here. What I did was I searched for Joseph Smith polygamy. And this is with Chrome, and I’m logged into Chrome. And so Chrome knows everything. Chrome and by relation, Google knows everything that I search for. They know my history. They know me better than I know myself. probably. Um so I did a search here for Joseph Smith Polygamy.
Jake Spurlock
Now as we zoom in on it, the top link is josephsmith polygamy. org. This is a Brian Hales website. It’s a awesome, amazing resource of history and stuff like that about Joseph Smith. And I’ve been to that website before. And then the next one is Plural Marriage in Kirtlin and Navu, which is the church essay. And then list of Joseph Smith’s wives. So this is the Google version. This is the Google results page that I get because Google knows it’s me. And just so everybody’s clear
Jake Spurlock
This page is built dynamically for you, like whoever requests the page. And so I’m going to do the same search again, but I’m going to use a Chrome incognito window, which basically Google, I’m not logged into Google. There’s no The history in the browser. In essence, it’s a fresh page of a new user that’s never been on the site before. So as I do it again, if you notice the top link now is the church’s essay.
Jake Spurlock
So the church and I’m not trying to make this sound nefarious or anything. This is what we call search engine optimization. Like this is not like, just want to be clear, I’m not trying to like make it sound Scary, or anything. So the church lands the top article. And this is what they want, because they want to be able to control the message. They don’t want Brian Hale’s website to be the top one. Because while Brian Hales is a huge ally of the church and was likely part of the writing of the top article, they want to control the message. They want to be that number one spot.
Jake Spurlock
Now, I’m going to show you one other thing, and this is something that the church cannot control. So, the same search lower down on the page, Google actually provides this box. It says people who also ask how many. Wives do Mormons have? Now, this is, once again, this did not show up on my page when I did the search, but this is on the incognito page. And so, outside of the church, making sure that that top link shows up, Google has said, hey, we get a lot of common search queries. And so we have this little meta box that we can put on it. Page that will show you what happens on common searches. Like it’ll just show you the exact answer. And so it does say: Emma took as many as 40 wives, some already married, and one only 14 years old.
Jake Spurlock
Now related to search engine optimization, which is how your search results show up when people do searches, you have something called search engine S E M. Monetization? No. Yes? Okay, coll, I’m totally drawing a blank here. Search engine monetization.
Jake Spurlock
Now, here I did a search for Mormon stories. Has anybody ever heard of that? It’s a fairly Popular podcast. Some guy named Jack DeLynn. Anyways, I think he got exed. So I did a search for Mormon stories. And if you look at the top box here, that Mormon. org one, that is an ad. So the church cannot they don’t want to juice the results using search engine optimization. So they do what they call search engine monetization, and they pay to put that box above that story.
Jake Spurlock
And to do this, and I’m just I’m explaining this because I assume you’re all not web professionals. I don’t mean to sound just So we’re all on the same page. So they pay, and it totally depends on the search terms and stuff like that, but it could be a three cent click. So if I click on that Mormon. org ad, the church pays Google like three cents or five cents or a dollar or something. Like that, depending on what the conversion rates are. And so, once again, this is just a small example of innovation disruption that’s happening in the church system. And how the church wants to control that message. And they want to say, we want to be the top hit. So when you search for Mormon stories, we’re going to try to bounce you over to Mormon. org just in case.
Jake Spurlock
So in the same kind of like vein, earlier today we talked about how the church used to really be able to control the mess. And that’s just not possible anymore. The conditions that surrounded the September 6 are something that are right now completely different.
Jake Spurlock
Just as an example, like between podcasts, books, mama dragons, which are awesome, Facebook groups. Reddit. Like there are so many different venues for people to talk and form groups and form relationships with other people with like-minded interest. Like, I didn’t know. Well, I was gonna say, I didn’t know anything about the September 6th because I was 10 years old. But a lot of people may not be shopping at the right bookstores or know the right person in their ward to talk to about stuff like this. It’s now just a Google searchaway.
Jake Spurlock
And furthermore, the message is even coming from the inside. Like this is an example from on Reddit, they have things called AMAs. And this is a Reddit AMA stands for Ask Me Anything. And this is a Reddit AMA. This is a former LDS Oregon employer.
Jake Spurlock
And he said one of the things that drove him away from working for the church was when I was working on the LDS. org search, and that exposed me to the essays. This is somebody that works at the church. He said there was complaint that an article was showing too high in the search results. Complaints about needing to clear stuff out of the search result. Results wasn’t too rare. Usually, it’s something like a dated enzyme article, fat shaming, or something. After being here for a while, I’m guessing you guys are being a pain on those occasions. This time, though, it was just showing up too high, though. I thought it was weird at first glance because the search terms were perfectly relevant to the article. I got to reading it. It was the infamous race in the priesthood essay. I’m not sure if I I need to elaborate more than that.
Jake Spurlock
So, once again, like, this is a problem that is inside the church, too. This is not, you can’t say that, like, if you’re in the church, you’re immune to things like this because it’s happening on the Inside too.
Jake Spurlock
It’s also external, like leaks from John DeLen about the policy change back in November. Mitch, in a couple Sessions ago, he said, Do you remember where you were? I remember exactly where I was. I had just left work and I was walking up 3rd Street in San Francisco and I saw this Facebook update pinned. I just texted Melissa right away and was like, I just can’t believe this.
Jake Spurlock
So disruption can be internal, it can be external, but the point is it can lead towards innovation. Now, I don’t know what the answer is for the church. I hope that it’s love, charity, and compassion. I hope that it’s a better, brighter future for LGBT people.
Jake Spurlock
Henry Eyring, he said some people drift when they study, but some people drift when they don’t study. If the church espouses the cause of ignorance, it will alienate more people than if it advises them to seek after the truth, even at some risk. I think that the answer comes from greater education.
Jake Spurlock
it comes from teaching people the real truth out there. Hubie Brown, he said, your thoughts and expressions must meet competition in the marketplace of thoughts, and in that competition truth Will emerge triumphant. Only error needs to fear freedom of expression. And I really like that quote.
Jake Spurlock
Much has been said about pre-correlation, and once again, it wasn’t right. For that. But when you have lively discussions in gospel doctrine classes, when there are differing opinions, and when we eliminate the polarity in the church of like it’s either true or it’s not true. And we can say there’s a spectrum of belief, there’s a spectrum that we can work with each other and realize that we can have differing beliefs. I think that’s probably where the future lies with the child. Church.
Jake Spurlock
And then I also want to quote Bob Reese, who I think has left. He said this earlier in his talk today, and I think this picture he had a really strong postum or something that morning. But he said, No technology produces holiness, no machines are capable of giving and accepting love, but only gods and humans have hearts capable of deep and enduring love. I leave that with you.
Jake Spurlock
Is there any questions? None? Let’s get out of here. Okay, we got one.
Speaker 4
So, um, since you’re in the tech world, what Um and we know there’s a lot of Warmington Dentistry and uh Mornington Law. Uh what do you s how do you see um the ch Church producing people who are vibrant and active in the tech community, and what do we do to encourage people in that direction? Do you think that’s a useful direction? People go instead of dentistry and law?
Jake Spurlock
Well, we need some dentists. I don’t know about lawyers. I think, like Cynthia’s talk, like Michelle’s talk earlier today. Like, it’s all about getting people in young, teaching them that, you know, engineering isn’t such a nerdy thing. I mean, it’s super nerdy, but it’s not so nerdy, you know? Nerdy is super cool. Um but it’s it’s teaching people young, it’s showing viable career paths. Uh when I left high school I I saw my ACT test the other day. Day and my things that I was supposed to be was an automotive technician, which I’m not like trying to talk down from that, but like it was never like an idea in school to become an engineer. year. And so, like, you know, with a little more counseling and coaching, and I think mentorships, you know, especially for the young girls, like, I think that there’s so many opportunities for women. in engineering, but that’s a real great feature. Any other questions? Yes?
Speaker 6
I asked him about shared faith journey.
Jake Spurlock
He asked me to share my faith journey in 30 seconds. And okay, so starting right now, because I have a timer. TBM, raised in the church, went on a mission, came home from a mission, got married to this lovely person right here. She’s awesome. and her sister and her dad. They’re both awesome too. Always been really into church, taught gospel doctrine for three or f three years, I think. Heavily involved in the scouting program. My father-in-law is a great example of that. Read some essays at the church. 27 seconds. Yes?
Speaker 7
I feel like in response to kind of the other question as far as like the tech community meeting somewhere for Mormons, I feel like it’s a really good place. Or, you know, the more people you have in tech, with these communities online being so big, like someone like you is really able to help shape and form and and um make these communities and and do better and help them like, you know, use resources to help make the online resources more useful or more searchable or more whatever. So I see, I don’t know, like I married a tech engineer tech, but I really see that there’s such a feature for just women, for men, for women to make different Communities that we want to see, the communities that we want to be a part of. And that’s a potential feedback to make that happen.
Jake Spurlock
Thank you. In the back.
Speaker 8
Computers we are in okay, but it’s not my world. Um my world is one in which I relevant the FDI As its largest office for scam prevention development. My world is one that is very concerned about deception. In a way, the loyalty and the trust of the Roman subculture can be easily deceived. And I’ve noticed the church is being, I do have a computer. And I do go to LDS on her. And over the last four or five years, it’s gotten far more expansive, just like Beridian Male. And other things that people send me on this Facebook thing which I hope not do somehow I’ve got in here so people will not get to me. So my question is are Is the church technologically keeping up with the jobless or setting it apace? I don’t understand what I see, but I’m highly concerned about the internet. Being a catalyst for deception as opposed to anything other than anonymity question following the other
Speaker 5
It’s a good question.
Jake Spurlock
So I think generally the question is: what is the church doing as far as Uh both online security and a little bit tracking and analytics and things like that. security organization on the planet. So it’s not cybersecurity, they’re talking about chasing their tail and trying to get pockets.
Jake Spurlock
I would definitely probably say that they are. One thing too, just to be clear, so is everybody. I mean, like, like my day job, we’re chasing our tail every day, just trying to you know, get get the right thing, be secure, you know, work on the all the new stuff, you know, like that’s what engineering is. It’s one continuous job. So yes.
Jake Spurlock
And then one thing too, just as a side note as far as cybersecurity goes, if you don’t if you feel like everybody’s tracking you and you don’t want to be tracked, there’s a great plug-in called Ghostroom. And it shows you every tracking script on a web page that is loading and tracking you. So if you go to lds. org, you’ll see Omniture Google Entertain Analytics, blah blah blah blah blah, along with Wired or any other stuff. So if you don’t like that, there’s easy ways to shout out. It’s called Ghostery. Ghost E R1. So just Google Ghostery and install it. And you will be a lot more secure online. Yes, sir.
Speaker 6
Daddy Blair, who is here, has a big wet presence, and you’ve gone to church conferences and consulted with that church about its online presence. So you could say they can answer this question.
Speaker 9
When I heard the question, my first thought was, oh, we’re definitely just trying to catch up. based on my experience at Hong Kong conferences, it’s, oh, I mean it’s for sure. And ev again, like I said, everyone’s happening. You see technology happening, oh, how do we how do we get ahead and search in the searches? How
Jake Spurlock
One of my favorite, I have an uncle that works for the church, and one of the coolest things that I’ve ever seen online is the genealogy fan charts that you can find from LDS. Like, it’s a beautiful UI. Like, I don’t want to say that the church is doing bad things, they are doing some amazing things online. And one thing that I didn’t plan on putting in my talk. But there is an amazing if you go to tech. lds. org, there are lots of opportunities for open source well, I shouldn’t say open source, for projects that the church is working on that they need People’s help with. So that includes the scripture apps if you’re an iOS developer. That includes, at one point in time, a couple years ago, I worked on building the DC Lights. Website. So the Washington DC Temple had a special website, and I helped work on that. And so there are a lot of opportunities, both in genealogy, both in UI projects, app development. Lots of projects up there, tech. ns. org. Any other questions? None? Awesome.
Jake Spurlock
Well, thank you all very much. Once again, for coming to Sunstone. Thank you to Lindsay. Thank you to everybody.