Vitalia
Description
Jonathan Hillis:
"Vitalia, a network city for longevity, received a grant from the Zuzalu spin-off program. They hosted a popup village in February 2024 in Honduras. Vitalia was different from Zuzalu in two key ways: they focused the event mostly on one topic (longevity), and they did it in a place where they intend to build a permanent home base (Prospera).
By focusing more narrowly, Vitalia was able to attract an aligned audience and go deeper on longevity: a biohacking lab, workout groups, healthy food, cold plunges, a biomedical hackathon, and relevant speakers like Bryan Johnson and Aubrey de Grey.
Even more importantly, Vitalia was hosted at Prospera, a special economic zone in Honduras that has the ability to offer biomedical treatments not approved by the FDA. This makes Prospera a great permanent home for Vitalia and the companies in its community that want to be able to work on longevity treatments. By seeding a focused community with recurring popups and the intention to build a more permanent location, Vitalia has developed a deeper sense of purpose and permanence than Zuzalu.
It is also a strong example of the symbiotic relationship between existing states and special economic zones that provide favorable regulatory anvd legal frameworks, and communities that want to build on top of these frameworks. You can think of it a bit like blockchains, which have L1s with base-level security guarantees and L2 communities built on top of them."