NIX's mission is to drive genuine engagement, reduce phone dependency, and increase social awareness.
We are trying to raise the next generation that will choose to put their phone down and be present, because they recognize the value in that. We build whatever serves that mission. Today that's NIX Phone-Free for high schools and colleges, NIX Scoreboard for anyone with a phone, and NIX Classroom for college classes.
Why we do it
We are the most connected generation in history, and we are also one of the loneliest. We don't think that is a coincidence. Something is taking attention from people on purpose, and the cost is paid in the room: the conversation not had, the friend not looked at, the moment watched instead of lived.
Jonathan Haidt makes much of this case in The Anxious Generation, and his book has shaped how we build. He argues that social media is the worst of it, and that stepping away is hard to do alone and works when a whole school or a whole friend group does it at once.
We have seen it ourselves. Ephraim has watched friends become disconnected from one another because of their phones, and Philip has watched phones compete for his students' attention. Most people already want to put the phone down, but willpower is only so strong against something built to win. So we don't sell willpower, and we don't take anyone's phone. We change the setup around a person and give them a reason worth choosing. We are not anti-phone. We are pro-presence.
What we've built
NIX began in April 2026 in Philip Johnson's office at Calvin University. Ephraim Dykstra, an engineering student who hadn't had Philip in class yet, had come by for advising about adding supply chain courses. The conversation wandered to technology, culture and social media, and then to the book Atomic Habits. Every semester, Philip's students read it and pick one habit to build or break, and year after year a lot of them pick their phone. If habits are built by making the better choice easier and rewarding it, why is almost every answer to phones the opposite? What if we rewarded presence instead of punishing distraction?
Ephraim said he could probably build a demo of that, and he did. Over coffee in May he showed it to Philip, and they came away with the same thought: this could make a real difference, and it could be a real business. NIX Development LLC was formed on May 18.
That summer the demo became NIX Phone-Free. Students earn a reward for leaving the phone at home or in the car, first at events and then, with Michigan and other states limiting phones in class, for a verified phone-free day across a whole school. It reached the App Store in August and Google Play right after.
Phones aren't only a school problem, so alongside it we built NIX Scoreboard. Friends and family compete on screen time, the lowest score wins, and a minute of social media costs more than a minute of checking email. Nobody likes to lose when their friends can see the number, and you can even put your phones down together at dinner. Scoreboard is free and always will be, funded by the rest of the company, because making money off that app was never the point.
That group focus led to NIX Classroom. In college your day is spread across buildings, so the phone can't just stay in the car, and we wondered what would happen if a whole class put theirs down together. Students scan the class code, which takes attendance, and choose to put their phone down for the period, and a professor can reward the ones who do. It's the same reward idea that started NIX, shaped for a college classroom.
What we're doing
Right now we are looking for schools and colleges to pilot NIX Phone-Free, growing NIX Scoreboard, and bringing NIX Classroom to its first professors.
We hold ourselves to a few rules while we do it. We never sell anyone's data. For schools and professors, we only check during a set window: they see whether a phone was away or down, when that changed, and the attendance that follows, and each product's privacy policy lists exactly what they can see. They never see what's on the phone. We report the fact and leave the consequence to whoever set the rule. And we make money from value, never from attention: schools and professors pay, students never do, and nothing we build earns more because you stayed on your phone.
Who we are
NIX was founded by Ephraim Dykstra and Philip Johnson. Ephraim is CEO: he runs the company and builds the products. Philip, an Associate Professor in the School of Business at Calvin University, works on strategy and business development.
Philip is also Ephraim's professor, so in class Philip teaches and at NIX Ephraim leads. The mentoring runs both ways: Philip brings the life experience, and Ephraim brings the software, the AI and a student's view of the world NIX is built for.