Hugh Francis

Hugh Francis founded Sanctuary Computer, a profit sharing and worker-owned creative studio in Chinatown, NYC. The studio focuses on design and technology work for clients including The Light Phone, Mill, Hinge, Tend, Stripe, etc. Francis has a background in mechanical engineering and has spoken about his work at institutions like Yale School of Art and The School of Visual Arts. He's interested in building dynamic businesses that prioritize both collectivism and social responsibility.

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Building an Operating System with React Native

React Summit US 2025

Upcoming

Building an Operating System with React Native

What happens when you push React Native to its limits? In 2018, we built LightOS - the operating system for the Light Phone II - as a custom fork of AOSP, running React Native as the view layer. That ecosystem is now the same codebase shipping to long awaited The Light Phone III. This talk reveals the technical journey bolting React Native into the OS level, tackling challenges like rendering at 2fps for e-ink displays, custom batching systems for consistent updates, and embedding React Native directly into Android firmware, running on multiple hardware platforms. You'll discover advanced performance patterns, custom rendering pipelines, and platform integration techniques that apply to any demanding React Native application. The Light Phone II shipped to hundreds of thousands of users and was named one of Time Magazine's best inventions, and the Light Phone III is shipping now to preorder customers.

react native