Berlin 2023
In-person / Sept 8-9
Paris 2023
In-person / July 15-16
This year, DeSci.Berlin and Funding the Commons join forces to host their next editions during Berlin Blockchain Week, set to unfold in the city's vibrant tech landscape on 8-9 September. On the 8th, DeSci.Berlin takes center stage, orchestrating intensive workshops and insightful talks by key players in the field. Attendees will delve into the complexities of decentralized science, from innovative research funding avenues to the conceptualization of biotech DAOs. On the 9th, Funding the Commons takes the reins, and will feature a unique emphasis on builders and interactive programming. In contrast to the storied academia of its Paris event, Berlin FTC will celebrate the hands-on spirit of creation and innovation. This combined event will ignite the development of new partnerships, projects, and initiatives with each day providing a distinct platform to engage with the wider blockchain and decentralized science communities.

Register to Attend

Watch the Livestream

Speakers
TO BE ANNOUNCED. The call for speakers is open! Please complete an application to let us know you're interested in speaking at Funding the Commons: Berlin 2023.
Angela Kreitenweis
Token Engineering Academy
Andrea Leiter
Sovereign Nature Initiative
Anirudha Bose
Brave
Beth McCarthy
Curve Labs / Funding the Commons
Brenda Loya
Tellor
Cem Dagdelen
Curve Labs, Giza
Charlie Durand
Extra Labs
Cheeky Gorilla
Protocol Guild
CJ Hetherington
Gigawatt Labs
David Casey
Protocol Labs
Dawn Drescher
AI Safety Impact Markets
Ela Kagel
Supermarkt
Ele Diakomichalis
Drips.Network
Erik Bordeleau
Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Feems
DAO Gov Collective & Workonchain
Garm Lucassen
Glo Dollar
Hanna Fiegenbaum
University of Leipzig/Ostrom Research & BLCK-IoT
Holke Brammer
Protocol Labs
Isabela Fernandes
The Tor Project
Jeff Pulver
Von
Jonas Seiferth
Optimism
Julian Zawistowski
Golem Foundation (Octant)
Kiba Gateaux
Debt DAO
Laura Lotti
Other Internet
Laura NaMu
IEF/WAGMI LATAM
Lou de Kerhuelvez
Foresight Europe
Madeleine Parker
Newfoundation / Newlife / Newforum
Manu Alzuru
DoinGud
María Paula Fernández
JPG
Nate Gosselin
Gitcoin / Allo Protocol
Nadiem Sissouno
Mento Labs
Nick Houde
Other Internet
Noah Yeh
da0
Oliver Beige
Polycentric
Philipp Pieper
Swarm
Philipp Von Der Wippel
Project Together
Rafa
Folklore
René Reinsberg
Celo
Romina Bungert
Bila Hora Ventures
Sara Johnstone
NuMundo / Funding the Commons
Shinya Mori
Fracton Ventures
Sofia Cossar
BlockchainGov
Stefi Pereira
Open Data Community
Tara Merk
Other Internet
Tony Lai
CodeX Stanford Blockchain Group
Vivian Chen
da0
Wassim Alsindi
MIT Computational Law Journal
Yin Aiwen
Commons·Art / ReUnion Network
Schedule
September 8, 2023
September 9, 2023
September 8, 2023
September 9, 2023
9:00 CEST / 7:00 UTC
Doors Open
Coffee and a light breakfast will be available.
10:00 CEST / 8:00 UTC
Opening Talks on Main Stage
The winners of the first-ever Funding the Commons Fund Public Goods Virtual Hackathon will be announced.
David Casey
10:30 CEST / 8:30 UTC
Funding the Commons Stage: Meet and Greet
The winners of the first-ever Funding the Commons Fund Public Goods Virtual Hackathon will be announced.
David Casey
11:00 CEST / 9:00 UTC
Sovereign Infrastructures Workshop
30-minutes of structured discussion followed by a 30-minute roundtable.
Brenda Loya
Dawn Drescher
Laura NaMu
Madeleine Parker
12:00 CEST / 10:00 UTC
Fireside Chat with René Reinsberg and David Casey
The winners of the first-ever Funding the Commons Fund Public Goods Virtual Hackathon will be announced.
David Casey
René Reinsberg
12:30 CEST / 10:30 UTC
Civic Tech Panel
Seeing Plurality in Taiwan's Civic Tech Movement
Noah Yeh
Vivian Chen
14:00 CEST / 12:00 UTC
Mechanism Design Praxis
30-minutes of structured discussion followed by a 30-minute roundtable.
Charlie Durand
CJ Hetherington
Garm Lucassen
Madeleine Parker
Shinya Mori
Stefi Pereira
15:00 CEST / 13:00 UTC
Real-World Assets
30-minutes of structured discussion followed by a 30-minute roundtable.
Kiba Gateaux
Philipp Pieper
Romina Bungert
16:00 CEST / 14:00 UTC
Measuring Impact
30-minutes of structured discussion followed by a 30-minute roundtable.
Brenda Loya
Ela Kagel
Hanna Fiegenbaum
Laura NaMu
17:00 CEST / 15:00 UTC
Adaptive Cultural UI
30-minutes of structured discussion followed by a 30-minute roundtable.
Feems
Madeleine Parker
Manu Alzuru
Rafa
Yin Aiwen
9:00 CEST / 7:00 UTC
Doors Open
Coffee and a light breakfast will be available.
9:30 CEST / 7:30 UTC
Opening Words
David Casey
9:40 CEST / 7:40 UTC
Funding the Commons is next in Asia!
Noah Yeh
Vivian Chen
9:50 CEST / 7:50 UTC
Funding the Commons Builder Residency Update
Talk Description
Sara Johnstone
10:10 CEST / 8:10 UTC
Retroactive Public Goods Funding: 2 Years In
I will share about Retroactive Public Goods Funding, what we learned in running 2 rounds of RetroPGF at Optimism, and what's next on our journey to summon Ether's Phoenix
Jonas Seiferth
10:30 CEST / 8:30 UTC
Circumventing Censorship with Tor
Talk Description
Isabella Fernandez
11:00 CEST / 9:00 UTC
New Types of Partnerships Between Civil Society and Governments through Open Social Innovation
Current societal challenges require new types of partnerships between politics, civil society and business. But effective collaboration is often hard to achieve. This talk will be about how multi- and cross-sectoral stakeholder collaboration can be orchestrated by sharing learnings from recent Open Social Innovation processes.
Phillip Von Der Wippel
11:20 CEST / 9:20 UTC
Web3 Work: The Contributor’s Perspective
In this talk we’ll present the findings from our 6-month long research project of labor conditions in Web3 and DAOs, including insights from 38 DAO contributors representing >50 DAOs. We’ll discuss the present and futures of work through DAOs as they emerged from our ethnography and reflect on key challenges that organizations need to face to improve working conditions for contributors at the ecosystem-level.
Laura Lotti
Nick Houde
Tara Merk
11:40 CEST / 9:40 UTC
Refunding the Commons?
In the course of his multi-year survey of applied cryptographic networks, Wassim has been reviewing efforts to use novel technological scaffolds to build organizations, institutions, and community infrastructure in the virtual realm. In this conversation, Beth McCarthy and Wassim will discuss case studies exploring the past, present, and possible futures of protocols, DAOs, public goods, decentralised communities, and the commons.
Beth McCarthy
Wassim Alsindi
12:00 CEST / 10:00 UTC
Infrastructuring Open Conspiracies
At the intersection of mechanism art, political philosophy and ecosystem design, we will share some perspectives on designing web3-based funding mechanisms for the arts. Our starting point: the artworld is a place where a myriad of partly (in)commensurable creative practices engage in complex and mostly opaque processes of mutual qualitative evaluations, financially and memetically extending between Staatskunst, (i.e. the art of writing grants), crowdfunding, and the hyperstitional swirls of the art market.
Cem Dagdelen
Erik Bordeleau
12:20 CEST / 10:20 UTC
Putting the "Design" in Mechanism Design: Tracing the Evolution of Economics as a Design Language
The digital world increasingly requires us to design "economic engines": computational abstractions that find optimal ways allocate resources. This talk traces the origins of "economic engineering" and delineates the directions in which economics has to evolve to become a design language, and conversely, how engineers can adopt economic concepts in their design work.
Oliver Beige
12:40 CEST / 10:40 UTC
Dialing into the Future: Sustainable Funding & Value Synergy in Open Source
Explore the journey of Free World Dialup and how its open-source foundation paves the way for sustainable public good funding. Join Jeff Pulver as he dives into aligning stakeholder values to ensure the longevity and impact of open networks.
Jeff Pulver
14:00 CEST / 14:10 UTC
Public Goods Hackathon Winners Announced
Talk Description
David Casey
Orinayo Ayodele
Orin Ayodele
14:10 CEST / 12:10 UTC
Public Goods for Advancing the Field of Token Engineering
Talk Description
Angela Kreitenweis
14:30 CEST / 12:30 UTC
Funding Ethereum's Core Protocol Work
The Protocol Guild enables a funding mechanism that can be used by Ethereum's ecosystem and community to help fund Ethereum's core protocol work, in a unique way that creates strong incentives to onboard and retain contributors over the long term. In this talk we'll cover learnings from our 1-year pilot, as well as our plans for the future.
Cheeky Gorilla
14:50 CEST / 12:50 UTC
Open Source All Things
Open-source is a foundational aspect of public goods, and should not be an afterthought. In this talk, I'll share our experience of building Brave Wallet as a free and open-source project, and explore how open-source isn't just a buzzword but a key ingredient in making public goods fair and resilient.
Anirudha Bose
15:10 CEST / 13:10 UTC
Unpaid Position: Building a Better and More Sustainable Future for Cultural Public Goods
Talk Description
Beth McCarthy
María Paula Fernandez
15:30 CEST / 13:30 UTC
Interdependence, On-Chain Graphs, & Public Goods
Talk Description
Ele Diakomichalis
16:00 CEST / 14:00 UTC
Gitcoin's Allo Protocol: Empowering Communities to Invest in Their Future
Web3 has unlocked a new era of digitally connected communities. In order to thrive, these modern communities will need sophisticated tools for investing in their future. Come learn how we're creating a foundation for this new whole new category of coordination.
Nate Gosselin
16:20 CEST / 14:20 UTC
Ecoweaving: Collective Action for the Eco-Commons
Ecoweaving is an initiative weaving people, projects, places, and worldviews in an emerging ecosystem of indigenous wisdom and innovation from intersections in finance, ecology, computational law, and beyond, with the goal of collective action and coordination around the crises in climate and ecological collapse. Join us to learn more about this extitution, gathering as individuals to attune our capacity to create change in consciousness and systems in resonance with our collective will.
Tony Lai
16:40 CEST / 14:40 UTC
Introducing DEEP: A Pathway Toward Flipping the Economics of Ecology
At Sovereign Nature Initiative, we develop the Decentralised Ecological Economics Protocol (DEEP) with the goal of flipping the economics of ecology. Our approach facilitates the flow of value between ecological work and digital creativity, enabling sustainable validation of ecological efforts. By effectively integrating ecological work with the digital realm through processing eco-data, we not only generate value, but we also imbue digital assets with tangible and real-life significance.
Andrea Leiter
17:00 CEST / 19:00 UTC
Making or Breaking the Stablecoin Market
The rise of stablecoins has presented a unique set of opportunities and challenges. Nadiem’s discussion will explore the important, yet often overlooked, role of intermediaries in the decentralized systems of stablecoin distribution, focusing on their impact on network architecture, market efficiency, and overall adoption.
Nadiem Sissouno
17:20 CEST / 15:20 UTC
Octant and Beyond: Ideas for Regenerative Web3 Self-Funding
After a brief presentation of Octant I will discuss ideas how we can mobilize more regenerative funding for public goods with Octant-like designs.
Julian Zawistowski
17:40 CEST / 15:40 UTC
From Hypercerts to Hyperboards: Advancing Modern Impact Funding Systems
Hypercerts, an implementation of the idea of impact certificates, are a new primitive for impact funding system. Hyperboards provide a new visualization and functionalities for collections of hypercerts. In his talk Holke demos how hyperboards advance the uses of hypercerts to power modern impact funding systems.
Holke Brammer
18:00 CEST / 16:00 UTC
Closing Words
David Casey
9:00 CEST / 7:00 UTC
Doors Open
Coffee and a light breakfast will be available.
9:30 CEST / 7:30 UTC
Opening Talks on Main Stage
10:10 CEST / 8:30 UTC
Funding the Commons Stage: Meet and Greet
11:00 CEST / 9:00 UTC
The Build Opportunity for Digitally Local Communities
DAOs are just the tip of the iceberg — we're about to see an explosion of digitally local communities that will need tooling to invest in their shared needs. Allo Protocol is designed to be a foundational resource allocation protocol, so that you can focus on building the products that will power the modern community.
Nate Gosselin
11:25 CEST / 9:25 UTC
Unconference
The winners of the first-ever Funding the Commons Fund Public Goods Virtual Hackathon will be announced.
David Casey
14:00 CEST / 12:00 UTC
New Sovereignties in a Networked World: Exploring the Emergence of Coordi-Nations
We observe that contemporary civilization is beginning to (re)structure around networks as an animating force for cooperation, alliance and mutual support; exhibiting nascent but growing patterns of constitutive sovereignty across all scales. This workshop is an interactive exploration of these new networked sovereignties. In particular, we introduce the concept of Coordi-Nations, a new institutional structure that offers an innovative and collaborative approach to global cooperation and coordination. We will critically examine why these entities are needed, how they may distinguish themselves from existing models of governance, and explore their potential structure and functionality. This workshop seeks not only to present a novel concept but to actively engage participants in the co-creation of this emerging paradigm.
Lou de Kerhuelvez
Sofia Cossar
16:00 CEST / 14:00 UTC
Unconference
The winners of the first-ever Funding the Commons Fund Public Goods Virtual Hackathon will be announced.
David Casey

Tokyo 2024

Join us for our 10th Funding the Commons conference in Tokyo Summer 2024! In a program curated by our partners from DeSci Tokyo and Plurality Tokyo, we’ll explore organizations and research projects revitalizing communities and civic infrastructures by defining new forms of support for public goods. In the midst of complex interdependent global challenges, and regional issues like declining population, defining needs, mechanisms, and coordination pathways around shared common resources can provide hope and tangible solutions. Amidst Japan's environmental and demographic shifts, this conference emerges as a crucial platform for inspiring new strategies in public goods support and presenting a regenerative vision from the cosmopolitan city of Tokyo. Over two days, engage, share, and collaborate to forge paths toward effectively funding and sustaining public goods in our dynamic world. Funding the Commons Tokyo 2024 brings together presentations, panel discussions, and collaborative sessions, welcoming both in-person and virtual participants. It's a chance for builders, protocol developers, academics, and funders to talk, create, and share new ways to fund public goods. Whether you're looking to add your knowledge, learn from the experts, or meet others in the field, this event is where you can help shape the future of public goods funding. Register now to secure your spot at Funding the Commons Tokyo 2024!
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