Builder
Residencies
Thank you Everyone!
Funding the Commons x Earth Commons x Pagoda
40 amazing builders to follow for some amazing innovations in the Public Goods Funding Ecosystem!
Thank you everyone it was amazing having you all in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
From October 7th to 31st in Chiang Mai, Thailand, the Funding the Commons Residency will convene a select group of developers, researchers, designers, and mentors to advance the future of public goods funding.
Over three weeks, participants will collaborate on crucial areas such as funding infrastructure, financial inclusion, environmental impact, decentralized storage, and privacy. Designed for those who thrive on open-source collaboration and practical problem-solving, the program is backed by partners including Pagoda, APAC DAO, UNICEF Office of Innovation, and Celo, offering a unique opportunity to shape the future of public goods funding and management across Web2 and Web3 ecosystems.
Participants will work in a setting that fosters creativity, mental well-being, and collaboration, with access to mentors, workshops, and a network of like-minded peers. FtC residencies are crucial for the public goods ecosystem as they create an intensive, collaborative environment that accelerates the development and sustainability of digital public goods, fostering rapid innovation and cross-disciplinary knowledge exchange that ensures the long-term viability of impactful projects.
We expect 35 builders and 7 mentors to attend this year’s residency
Please note that applications for the 2024 cohort are currently closed. To stay informed about future events and opportunities, sign up for our newsletter.
Historically, Chiang Mai, known as the "Northern Thailand Rose," was the capital of the Lanna Kingdom. This mountainous region in Southeast Asia has a long history of embracing pluralist values and anarchist traditions. It has also been a popular destination for Western travelers seeking a more relaxed and alternative lifestyle since the 1960s.
The location chosen to host the residency is a thriving crypto nomad community, founded on the principles of sustainability, open-source, freedom, and diversity, fosters a healthy and inclusive environment for its members. As a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), this community empowers its members to participate in governance and shape its direction. The community offers a range of benefits, including affordable living, a supportive network, and engaging activities.
It provides an ideal workspace, living environment, and activity space near many other residencies and pop-up villages happening during the same period. This proximity allows for collaboration, idea exchange, and mentorship opportunities, while also providing members with the chance to explore the local culture and wisdom.
We are proud to be partnering with Pagoda a wide network of Asian web3 and Ethereum ecosystem builders, thinkers, and leaders dedicated to humanitarian care across Asia. They provide a resilient support system for change-makers in the political, economic, technological, and spiritual sectors, prioritizing high-trust relationships through peer support and mutual care.
By fostering a sense of belonging, emotional maturity, and skill development, Pagoda emphasizes people over projects and aligns livelihoods with values. Their experienced team ensures seamless logistics and effective coordination, creating a collaborative environment that bridges traditional wisdom with modern knowledge.
Pagoda was a natural partner for this residency, sharing both a mission and long-term vision with Funding the Commons. Our collaboration with local partners like Pagoda not only deepens community connections but also expands our impact on a global scale.
Earth Commons is a powerful network of highly engaged, mission-aligned actors that fosters interdisciplinary conversations and collaborations to transform the funding and governance of nature’s commons—such as forests, oceans, and diverse ecosystems. By bringing together stakeholders from Web2, Web3, academia, NGOs, intergovernmental organizations, public institutions, philanthropy, and the financial sector, Earth Commons aims to create impactful solutions for environmental challenges.
Originally incubated as the Sustainable Blockchain Summit by the Filecoin Green Team at Protocol Labs, Earth Commons has since evolved into an international event series. Through conferences, hackathons, and residencies, it builds bridges and drives innovation across Web2, Web3, and beyond.
In this residency, Earth Commons will explore themes such as natural capital assets (including biodiversity credits and carbon credits), climate finance, open source satellite tracking, environmental conservation and restoration mechanisms, bioregional governance and decentralized measurement, reporting, and verification (dMRV).
Commons refer to resources that are shared by a community and accessible to all, without exclusive ownership.
These include natural assets like air, water, and land, as well as cultural and intellectual resources such as knowledge, public spaces, technical infrastructure and digital platforms.
The concept of commons underscores the importance of collective responsibility and stewardship, ensuring that these resources are managed in a way that benefits everyone, from now into the future.
Public Goods Funding Infrastructure:
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distribution & allocation
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governance & DAO infrastructure
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Identity & sybil resistance
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impact evaluation, certification, credentials, attestation
Financial Inclusion:
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last mile payments
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humanitarian & social impact use cases
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remittances
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fiat on/off-ramps
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mobile money
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local currencies
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UX design for Global South
Environmental Impact:
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natural capital assets (i.e. biodiversity credits, carbon credits)
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dMRV
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climate finance
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environmental conservation & restoration mechanisms
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bioregional governance
Privacy:
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ZK & ZKML
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private payments
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decentralized identity
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anonymous communication networks
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Privacy RegTech (regulatory compliance)
Decentralized Storage:
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Applications of Filecoin & IPFS for decentralized data markets
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censorship-resistant transparent archival systems
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access to open knowledge, resilience and accessibility of public data
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Collaborative Peer Production of Open Source Software
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Builder Project
Success Stories
Vivek, Althea and Rachel
Jubjubs are collectible digital mementos tied to in-person interactions, allowing users to privately store and selectively verify their experiences using zk proofs. As a world-first proof of concept, the project demonstrates the value of private data ownership by enabling users to control their data and access exclusive rewards through verifiable proofs. By engaging users in a game-like experience, it introduces zk technology in a fun and accessible way, inspiring them to explore its potential applications in their communities.
Conservation Basic Income
David Dao & Marco Barbosa
This project emerged from a powerful collaboration between Gainforest and Impact Markets, driven by strong synergies. This partnership enabled David Dao and Marco Barbosa to develop a proof of concept where payments distributed through Impact Market are tied to the collection of on-the-ground data. This data is then used to train AI models to verify and monitor ecological regeneration efforts.
Tomislav Mamić
This project is the first implementation of quadratic funding mechanism for prioritising and funding of municipal public goods during the Berlin residency, and received an Ethereum Next Billion Fellowship for his work. FtC was the first to provide grant funding to support his project.
LauNaMu
Worked on creating a Impact evaluation framework, which manifested as the Metrics Garden through her contributions to the Impact Evaluation workgroup which took place during the residency.
This is your Testimonial quote. Give your customers the stage to tell the world how great you are!
This is your Testimonial quote. Give your customers the stage to tell the world how great you are!
This is your Testimonial quote. Give your customers the stage to tell the world how great you are!
Areas of Focus
We supported teams working on projects in areas including (but not limited to) the areas described below. See links for examples of projects our grantee community has worked on.
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Coordination and Funding infrastructure
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Stealth Donations & Meta-Addresses
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Aggregation indexer for civic and public data
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Sybil Attack Detection AI/ML Tool
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Trustless apps
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Quantitative and qualitative Impact Evaluators
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Hypercerts: Impact Certification
Projects & Achievements from Berlin Residency
We can proudly say that one of the projects incubated during the residency and given its first grant by Funding the Commons post-residency has allowed our community member to receive the the ETH Next Billion Fellow Award.
Past Residency
Berlin 2023
In September 2023, Funding the Commons hosted a tranformative, month-long, immersive experience that took place in Berlin, Germany.
40 builders and 15 mentors/sponsors participated in this co-living and co-working experiment to produce 25 public goods projects .
Attendees experienced the power of collaboration and innovation as builders and hackers came together to focus on the advancement of public goods funding infrastructure, impact evaluators, impact certification systems, and other elements of the public goods funding stack in both Web2 and Web3 applications.
We value open-source and the outputs of the residency are accessible and usable by the wider community.