Edge Esmeralda

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= "Edge City is an IRL experimentation lab for new ideas, tech, culture, and organizations, all dedicated to accelerating human flourishing." [1]


Description

1. Jonathan Hillis:

"Most recently, I attended another Zuzalu spin-off called Edge Esmeralda, which is still happening as I write this in Healdsburg, CA (June 2024). EE is popup village designed to help seed a nearby permanent village called Esmeralda, the Chautauqua of the West. It has been my favorite popup village event so far for a few reasons: location, co-creation, and family-friendliness.

Healdsburg is a charming town of 11,000 people an hour north of San Francisco. While California is a bit more expensive and less globally accessible than other locations, it was also a short drive for the high density of strong builders in the Bay Area. The town itself was the right size to make most of the venues walkable/bikeable and had a great town square at the center for people to casually meet up. The organizers brought in a couple hundred Burning Man bikes, which helped make it easy to get around and added to the vibe.

Edge Esmeralda was spread across a dozen or so hotels, coworking spaces, and other venues to host events. The range of spaces made it easy to cowork during the day and participate in abundant programming on nights and weekends. Co-creation was highly encouraged, and they made it easy for anyone to add events to the shared calendar, which allowed people to host constant impromptu workshops, panels, and discussions.

While all of the popup village events I've attended have had elements of co-creation, it's great to see how much the technology behind these events has made this easier. Zuzalu was bootstrapped from scratch, and built infra like Zupass (their event ticketing system) onsite during the event. It was still a clunky early prototype—but now, a year later, it's a much more user friendly app. Similarly, Social Layer (which also came out of the Zuzalu ecosystem) made the shared calendar much more accessible and useable than past events, which led to more co-creation.

Edge Esmeralda was the first explicitly family-friendly popup village. It takes a village to raise kids, and popup villages are a natural fit for families. Every night at community dinner, there was a kids table full of markers, playdoh, and toys. Cabin hosted some gatherings for families in the park. There were activities and camps for kids of various ages. That said, there's lots of room for future popup villages to become even more family friendly, particularly with shared childcare."

(https://words.jonhillis.com/popup-villages/)


2. Janine Leger:

"I helped establish one of the first pop-up cities, Zuzalu, in Montenegro last year as a two-month experiment to explore whether we could bring together individuals interested in diverse projects and frontier technologies, particularly in crypto and longevity. The initiative was a success, highlighting the global desire for more such experiments. Inspired by Vitalik's vision of decentralization and public goods, we aimed to develop Zuzalu as a public good.

After creating Zuzalu, we debated its future—whether to develop it as an event area or something else. Ultimately, we concluded that decentralization would be more beneficial, allowing various people to create similar initiatives. I collaborated with co-founder Timour Kosters from Edge City, focusing on leading and building this ecosystem rather than just participating. This inspired the concept of "building on the edge," fostering an environment where diverse, innovative thinkers can thrive, which is the essence of Edge City.

We decided to create a communal village focused on multigenerational families, healthy living, and collaboration as a temporary campus. Participants will co-create experiences and projects, exploring how to accelerate progress through close living, outdoor activities, and fostering a culture of building rather than consuming. This concept aims to generate a vibrant space that attracts innovative talent, potentially evolving into a new urban area. My partner Devon(Devon Zuegel) joined based on this vision; she is interested in land in Northern California, while we prioritize being close to San Francisco to attract talent from cutting-edge industries. We are currently in the second phase of this experiment in Hillsborough."

(https://blog.uncommons.cc/cryptoflight-vol-1/)


More information

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