How do you imagine something that's impossible and like you just you know how can you even think that it's going to work out but then you go out in the world and you try that crazy idea and this residency has so many people like that you know people with like crazy mad hat ideas and we need more mad hatters in the world. How I first heard about funding the comments and the residency was um through colleagues of mine. Actually, I just saw them posting on LinkedIn. So, I went down the rabbit hole to read up what is this about like what are you guys doing?
The concept I would say is what would happen if we managed to extend those conversations that usually take place at conferences and uh meetups and take them and allow them to run over a longer period of time. We would like to produce public goods here. Uh this residency is curated for 80 to 90% builders. We curated these builders on the basis of several themes like environmental impact, public goods funding mechanisms, ZK and privacy. And there's also been quite an emphasis here in this residency with real world solutions.
So we've been working with local NOS's on the ground here. We found out about the great work with the local refugee crisis and we just thought okay this is like by far the most interesting event that's happening uh in Mai which is saying a lot cuz there are lots of events happening in Mai.
Process of curation was around trying to imagine who are these builders we're talking to right now? What is their skill sets? What is their interest? What's their experience? And what would happen if we took this person and this person and this person and they were living next door to each other?
like what kind of uh design space of innovation would arise naturally there.
How do you make systems that are not capturable by authority that then asserts incumbency? The technology being able to allow everyone to have responsibility and power for themselves. It's not only what's being built, but I think it's also the conversations about how we should think about building these things. cuz I feel like it's such an evolving space that there's no university course you can do or Udemy that teaches you how to create these things and so a lot of like the latest knowledge is just stored in people's heads. So you need to bring these people together in order to have these conversations in order to like figure out why this thing works and why this thing doesn't work.
Is there mechanisms that we can come up with that don't exist yet that will actually change the game? And that's kind of what we're betting on. What excites me about technology in the context of uh human rights is the scalability of technology and this is something that we haven't had before an opportunity that we should capture. I learned a lot about how I could apply those systems to the real world back in my community in India uh in Bangalore where you know city elections have not happened. So how can we use some of these web 3 tech and product ideas in the real world?
How public good funding is done in the web 3 space. How we can maybe translate that back to the web two space. But also what can we learn from the web two space? So I think some crossination needs to happen.
Small teams are just forming all the time. You know it's like every day I wake up and then there's a new group of people working on a NEW SOLUTION.
LET'S GO.
THEY MAKE IT very easy. Everything is very inclusive. like a breakfast together, easy to skip on another table where you don't know the people yet. Sometimes you have an aha moment just by speaking to people that you think like ah okay, you know, never thought about it like from like this angle.
We have 36 38 people from 22 different 23 different countries which is uh fascinating.
So many people to like collaborate on on so many projects. This has been a melting pot of like ideas, you know, playing out. Some people already knew each other before. Some always wanted to work together and never found a you know common place to be at and physically in person and those have led to such great um you know collaborations and um the fact that you know we've actually we're actually talking about how do we make sure like this doesn't end here like you know this is just like we are born here basically and then how do we grow this after the residency. Instantly as you walk in people understand okay what is this level what kind of language am I using here or what kind of tone am I using here and kind of will assist you in design space or mindset to uh think bigger things you know
so the other people here are all so heart-c centered like they're making technology that they deeply believe in each and everyone and it's uh it's really inspiring to to be in this uh environment
it's amazing everyone is so nice. They are genius. They are brilliant. I'm learning from each of them every day.
I just think there's so much that can come from immersing yourself and being around people that are having the same mindset in terms of building towards a purpose um that serves people that are generally in need for for the solution. So, I would say if you've never heard of fun in the commons, now is the perfect time as ever for you to look into it. Maybe find out how you can, you know, align yourself with it. Um, you'll find that there's a lot more you can you can get from liazing with people that are of a similar mindset as you are.
Automatic transcript — names and jargon may be misspelled.