Edge City Monthly #3 — May 2024

‍This is a monthly update for our earliest supporters. We promise to keep it short and sweet!

Hello friends!

Timour from Edge City here 🌞 I hope you are having a wonderful day.

There is a lot going on this month! Edge Esmeralda is around the corner (less than two weeks) — exciting updates on that below.

Also, we are sharing a sneak peak of Edge City Lanna, our next popup village, which will take place from October 10th to November 10th in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Sign up for updates on the site, and read more below!

On with the update!

Remind me, what is Edge City?

Edge City creates “popup villages” around the world that convene people working at the frontiers of tech, science, and society.

We aspire to be a ‘society incubator’— a lab of experimentation for new ideas, tech, culture, social tech, and organizations, all dedicated to accelerating human flourishing.  

Asks

• Share Edge Esmeralda: We have limited tickets left for Edge Esmeralda. Share the site with folks who are a great fit (or yourself!).
• Get tickets and accomms: If you applied to Edge Esmeralda and have received your acceptance, please purchase your tickets and accommodation!
• Send this link about the Edge Esmeralda hackathon to any great hackers you know.
• Share the Edge City Lanna site with folks you know well who you think would be a good fit.
• Follow us on Twitter to stay in the loop :)  

The Latest

Edge Esmeralda

Lots of updates for our June event via our blog.

TLDR:

• Edge Esmeralda Hackathon: We just announced the hackathon program running throughout the whole month of Edge Esmeralda. If you’re a hacker or know of great folks, please send them this link.  
• Week 1: We shared a summary of week 1 programming in both blog and video form (I'm genuinely curious which you prefer!).
• Blood Testing for Longevity: Sign up for blood testing and biometrics at Edge Esmeralda if you want to live forever longer!
• Art at the Edge: We are working with Optimism to feature artists from their ‘We ❤️ The Art’ campaign at Edge Esmeralda!

Track Preview: Living Better, Living Longer (Monday, June 3 - Friday, June 7)

Organized by Justin Mares and Julia Lipton, this track will have daily workouts, an opportunity for a full blood draw and health assessment on Monday, and evening salons with leading health experts. The week will culminate in an all-day unconference on Friday.

We’ll focus on ways to improve your health span and the latest research on mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health.

Track Preview: Hard Tech Weekend (Friday, June 7 - Sunday, June 9)

Eli Dourado from the Abundance Institute is teaming up with Ben Reinhardt from Speculative Technologies to organize a multi-day unconference. They’ve invited leaders in sectors like energy, transportation, aerospace, defense, and manufacturing to share ideas on topics such as R&D, regulatory reform, financing capital-intensive projects, and beyond.

Track Preview: LabWeek Field Building at Edge Esmeralda (Monday, June 10 - Sunday, June 16)

A key focus for Edge City is to create connection points between diverse areas of frontier technology.

To that end, we're incredibly excited to host LabWeek Field Building at Edge Esmeralda, a new decentralized conference by Protocol Labs and Foresight Institute, taking place June 10-16.

The week will address four main tracks: 1) Neurotechnology, 2) Human-AI Cooperation, 3) Biotechnology & Longevity, 4) and Extended Reality.

Check out more detail on the website here!

And now, because we love quick turnarounds and hate taking breaks, we’re excited to share…

Edge City Lanna — Chiang Mai, Thailand

We are excited to share a sneak peak of Edge City Lanna, our next popup village, which will take place from October 10th to November 10th in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Join us for a gathering focused on incubating novel technologies and ways of living. Experience a blend of ancient history and modern innovation, starting your day meditating in 700-year-old temples and ending it by discussing the latest advancements in AI and BioTech.

More info to come! If someone forwarded you this, you can sign up for updates on the Edge City Lanna website.

But that’s not all!

Crecimiento — Innovation in Argentina

Because we just love doing stuff, we are advising the team behind Crecimiento on their exciting initiative.

Crecimiento is a movement bringing together Argentine & global innovators, focused on transforming Argentina into a world-leading crypto, startup & innovation hub. As part of the movement, Crecimiento will be hosting a popup village in Buenos Aires between 5 August - 1 September, 2024.  

The popup will bring together 200-400 founders & startup teams, builders, mentors, experts, leaders, believers, government, regulators across multiple tracks: crypto, startup, Crecimiento, wellness, culture & more.

If you’re curious you can read more about the popup village here, and join the telegram group here.

Read & Listen

Read: Timour Kosters — Zone of Scenius: Zuzalu, popup villages, and building at the edges

Shameless self-plug (one of the perks of writing a newsletter!) Just one year after Zuzalu, there are dozens of popup villages. You can spend the rest of 2024 living in one, going from one to another. I wrote about my experience in these environments, why they can be transformational, and why this movement is an important step towards the future of technology, communities, and networked cities. Let me know what you think!

Watch: Eric Alston — Popup cities and digital governance (Twitter, YouTube)

We spoke with Eric Alston from CU Boulder about his experience at popup villages, speedrunning governance (or how that’s not actually possible), Putnam's bowling alone, and the implications of zero-knowledge proofs in governance. Eric always has great insights, and we’re lucky to have him join us at Edge Esmeralda in June.  

Read: Primavera De Filippi and Jessy Kate Schingler — Coordi-nations: A New Institutional Structure for Global Cooperation

After a workshop at Zuzalu, Primavera and Jessy Kate published this essay on "coordi-nations," a new organizational structure using networked communities and digital technologies to encourage global cooperation and shared values. Coordi-nations may provide new solutions to global challenges through participatory governance and mutualism. If you’re coming to Edge Esmeralda, you can participate in the next stage of this workshop by signing up here.

Concept Art

Some of the other activities happening the first week of Edge Esmeralda! ❤️

Thanks for reading and see you soon!

Timour + the Edge City team.

‍