About The INVITE
The Invite is a multi-platform project designed to cultivate ancestral intelligence, developing new protocols for cultivating stories and data at scale.
THE APP
The heart of The Invite is our app, currently in R&D.
As an invite-only social networking project, The Invite App harnesses data owned by communities excluded from large language models. Invitees include storytellers, organizers, thought leaders, and others who are developing intellectual property in service of collective liberation.
Artists, community organizers, and academics leading organizations, labs, and collective will receive the first set of invitations to onboard the inaugural Cookout users. Invitations will go out in spring 2026.
THE DOC PODCAST
The Invite (2026) is a Black-led documentary podcast, inviting artists and community leaders across disciplines to share their recipes for liberation.
Premiering Juneteenth 2026 and every year thereafter, The Invite is co-created by Dr. Aymar Jean Escoffery, developed with Emmy Award-winning producer Makiah Green; Emmy Award-nominated director Sam Bailey; and Emmy-nominated producer Sarah Minnie.
Our Approach
The Cookout project is based on over 10 years of research from Northwestern University Professor Aymar Jean Escoffery.
The theory and practice of the cookout is outlined in his book, Reparative Media, published on The MIT Press in 2025. Based on the launch of his first app, OTV | Open Television (2015-present), Dr. Escoffery developed a process for cultivating cross-community solidarity through the decentralized distribution of stories and data.
A popular version of the argument is available for download via the comic book, The Cookout: A Guide to AI (Ancestral Intelligence) published 2025.