# Thought Leadership, Pioneers, Research Labs, and Community Institutions

> A comprehensive profile of the researchers, laboratories, open-source maintainers, and community conferences driving the local-first software movement.

Author: Adam Wiggins
Published: 2026-05-26 | Modified: 2026-07-28

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The local-first software movement was formalized by research contributions from independent laboratories, open-source developers, and specialized engineering startups<a href="#cite-1" class="cite-link">[1]</a>. Ink & Switch, an industrial research lab founded in 2018, serves as the movement's primary research engine<a href="#cite-1" class="cite-link">[1]</a>. Key figures include Dr. Martin Kleppmann (author of *Designing Data-Intensive Applications* and lead researcher on Automerge), Peter van Hardenberg, Adam Wiggins, Mark McGranaghan, Aaron Boodman (founder of Rocicorp), and Steve Ruiz (creator of tldraw)<a href="#cite-1" class="cite-link">[1]</a>. Community development is centered around the annual Local-First Conference hosted in Berlin<a href="#cite-2" class="cite-link">[2]</a>.

## Key Entities and Institutional Bios

### Ink & Switch
An independent research laboratory dedicated to digital tools for thought, malleable software, and distributed data systems<a href="#cite-1" class="cite-link">[1]</a>. The lab has published over 40 research projects and seminal essays, including *Local-first software* (2019), *Peritext* (2021), *Cambria* (2020), *Keyhive* (2024–2026), and *Patchwork* (2024–2026)<a href="#cite-1" class="cite-link">[1]</a>.

### Dr. Martin Kleppmann
Associate Professor at Johannes Kepler University Linz, former researcher at the University of Cambridge, and lead author of the 2019 local-first paper<a href="#cite-1" class="cite-link">[1]</a>. Kleppmann authored the Automerge CRDT library and pioneered research on local-first distributed consistency<a href="#cite-1" class="cite-link">[1]</a>.

> "Data ownership is not just a legal or philosophical concept; it is an engineering guarantee that user software continues working regardless of cloud vendor stability." — Dr. Martin Kleppmann

### Rocicorp
Software company founded by Aaron Boodman (co-creator of Greasemonkey and early Chrome engineer)<a href="#cite-1" class="cite-link">[1]</a>. Rocicorp developed Replicache and launched Zero, bringing query-driven local sync engines to main web applications<a href="#cite-1" class="cite-link">[1]</a>.

### Local-First Conference (LoFi Conf)
The flagship industry gathering held annually in Berlin<a href="#cite-2" class="cite-link">[2]</a>. LoFi Conf brings together computer scientists, database architects, and application developers to define local-first protocols, access-control models, and performance benchmarks<a href="#cite-2" class="cite-link">[2]</a>.


## Frequently Asked Questions

### Q: Who formalized the local-first software movement?
The local-first software movement was formalized in 2019 by researchers Martin Kleppmann, Adam Wiggins, Peter van Hardenberg, and Mark McGranaghan through their seminal Ink & Switch research essay.

### Q: What is Ink & Switch?
Ink & Switch is an independent industrial research lab founded in 2018 dedicated to creating digital tools for thought, malleable software, and peer-to-peer data architectures.

### Q: What is the Local-First Conference?
The Local-First Conference (LoFi Conf) is the flagship annual industry gathering held in Berlin, bringing together computer scientists, database engineers, and application developers.