/ Community

The OpenCivics Network is A community of practice & solidarity

Civic innovators, organizers, and patrons sharing in common a collaborative practice of open civic innovation.

Read the Pledge
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About Network
Network Members
Network Updates
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/ Network Updates

Field notes, reports, and general reflections on activities within the network | Explore all broadcasts

  • A group of people sitting in a circle in a bright room with wooden floors and brick walls, participating in a discussion or workshop.

    Global Forum for Ethereum Localism (GFEL) Boulder Retrospective

    March 2025 • FIELD NOTE →

  • A person lying on a bed surrounded by cats in a room with pictures on the wall.

    OpenCivics Network Report: August 2025


    February 2025 • VIEW REPORT

  • A group of people attending a presentation or meeting in a bright, spacious room with large windows, a television screen displaying an agenda, and various seating arrangements including armchairs, a low table, and cushions on the floor.

    Fund the Future: OpenCivics Collaborative Research Round


    August 2024 • NETWORK UPDATE

  • TrustGraph Evaluation Report

    December 2025 • RETROSPECTIVE

  • Black and white photo of a shrub or bushes with small flowers or buds.

    OpenCivics Network Report: June 2025


    June 2025 • VIEW REPORT

  • Green grass with white icons of a tree ring and a snowflake connected by an 'x' symbol.

    TrustGraph x Localism Fund Expert Network


    October 2025 • FIELD NOTE

  • Localism Fund: Nurturing Self-Organizing Capacity within Place-Based Communities

    October 2025 • NETWORK UPDATE

  • OpenCivics + BioFi: A New Era in Bioregional Finance on Gitcoin

    October 2024 > NETWORK UPDATE

/ About Network

Embracing A Path of mutual Responsibility

The OpenCivics Network (OpenCivics) is a community of practice and solidarity devoted to the collective practice of open civic innovation — a global community of organizations and individuals experimenting together with these ideas, connected through shared protocols and mutual learning rather than institutional membership. The Network exists to establish and steward the field of open civic innovation by convening likeminded peers across the domains of open civic innovation.

Allies

Those who sense the call and want to orient. Allies form the outer membrane of the ecosystem — a global field of resonance and shared imagination.

Innovators

Those who experiment with open civic innovation, prototyping systems and utilities for the improvement of practice & growth of the commons.

Patrons

Those who resource open civic innovation through financial, social, and cultural capital, sustaining the ecosystem’s growth.

Organizers

Those who coordinate and open civic innovation efforts, cultivating alignment, coordination, and collaboration in place-based contexts.

The OpenCivics Network is composed of four primary organizing structures. They function synergistically, each providing unique affordances for the benefit of the Network as a whole. Together, these organizing structures ensure that the Network is at once open and inclusive, coordinated and governable, experimental and adaptive, and resourced and legitimate.

  • Network → broad solidarity (allies aligned with the vision)

  • Consortium → coordinated practice (innovators, organizers, patrons actively building)

  • Labs → R&D and implementation support (consulting guild advancing the field)

  • Foundation → resourcing infrastructure (stewarding capital flows)

/ Network organizations

Membranes of Membership & Activity

  • Illustration of a carbon atom structure with a blockchain grid in the background, symbolizing blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.

    OpenCivics Network

    A community of practice & decentralized solidarity network of civic innovators, organizers, and patrons.

  • Digital illustration of a white molecular structure on a blue background.

    OpenCivics Consortium

    A coordination body of network citizens self-organizing around the creation of open civic systems and the network.

    LEARN MORE → (coming soon)

  • Illustration of a spider web pattern with interconnected blue dots on a light green background.

    OpenCivics Labs

    A cooperative guild of civic innovators experimenting with emerging approaches that support collective action.

    LEARN MORE → (coming soon)

  • A white digital network icon centered on a pink gradient background.

    OpenCivics Foundation

    A non-profit supporting the development of the network and the growth of the open civic innovation movement.

    LEARN MORE → (coming soon)

/ Network Pledge

we are all responsible
for the places we call home

The OpenCivics Network is formed around a pledge: to treat civilization itself as a participatory design process. It is an invitation to collaborate on a civilization-scale Apollo Project — renewing civic culture, cultivating civic virtue, and innovating civic systems that empower thriving humans, thriving communities, thriving organizations, and thriving ecologies.

We believe a participatory, vital, and resilient civilization is possible.


The choice is ours: to imagine and to create an open civilization together.

Make a Pledge : Become a Member

“If we accept that our current crises are the result of our systems themselves, it becomes our civic responsibility to create new civic systems and rebuild our capacity to reimagine and redesign how civil society is organized from the bottom up.”

“The origin of the word civics comes from in an act of care, an expression of solidarity and devotion rooted in mutuality and shared belonging”

“Liberating the natural impulse of the human spirit to envision and co-create a more beautiful world is one of the greatest endeavors of our time and invokes a return to the original meaning of civics.”

/ Why Join?

Benefits to members

The Network exists to establish and steward the field of open civic innovation by convening likeminded peers – serving these functions:

  • Incubating Practice → creating safe-to-fail spaces for open civic innovation.

  • Weaving Community → building trust and solidarity across diverse contexts.

  • Stewarding Culture → holding ourselves accountably to shared ethos, ethics, and design principles.

  • Scaling Knowledge → curating and distributing resources and stories through the commons.

  • Resourcing Efforts → mobilizing diverse forms of capital to sustain experiments and infrastructures.

/ Network Members

Co-creators of an open civic renaissance

Join the Network
View All Members
  • A person with glasses and large earrings, with green and blonde hair, wearing a black jacket, smiling at the camera.

    Zarinah Agnew

    A guerrilla scientist applying rigorous neuroscience to questions of collective emancipation, commoning, and alternative justice.

    Currently: Director of Research, Collective Intelligence Project | President, District Commons

    Affiliations: Collective Intelligence Project, District Commons, Embassy Network, Social Science Observatory, London College of Political Technology

    PROFILE →

  • A woman with curly hair wearing a wide-brimmed black hat and a black, strappy top. She is smiling and waving with a blurred outdoor background.

    Roxanna "Roxi" Shohadaee

    A regenerative artivist and experiential producer creating immersive pathways from climate despair to collective possibility.

    Currently: Founder & CEO, habRitual | Director and ARTchitect, Design Science Studio

    Organizations: habRitual, Design Science Studio (Buckminster Fuller Institute), Gray Area

    PROFILE →

  • A man with curly brown hair, smiling, wearing a black shirt, standing in front of a plain background.

    Charlie Fisher

    An urban-instigator reimagining property systems for thousand-year stewardship, bridging community land trusts with blockchain governance.

    Currently: Strategic Designer, Dark Matter Labs | Founding Committee Member, OASA

    Affiliations: Dark Matter Labs, OASA, Oxfordshire Community Land Trust, Transition by Design

    PROFILE →

  • A man with short dark hair, gray beard, wearing a black hoodie and a beige shirt, standing in front of a white wall with colorful children's artwork framed on it.

    Diogo Jorge

    A syntropic gardener building borderless movements that use blockchain to support rooted, intergenerational agricultural agendas.

    Currently: Agroforestry Educator | Founder, AgroforestDAO

    Affiliations: AgroforestDAO, Ecovila Saracura, Gitcoin Grant Recipient

    PROFILE →

  • A woman with short dark hair and glasses, smiling with pink lipstick, wearing a green top.

    Patricia Parkinson

    A polymath ontological designer architecting participatory infrastructures where imagination meets implementation, cultivating coherence within decentralized, care-centered systems.

    Currently: Co-Founder & Network Steward of OpenCivics

    Affiliations: OpenCivics, Design Science Studio, Localism Fund, Regen Commons, Network Nations Alliance, Imaginal House, Luminary Society

    PROFILE →

  • A young man with glasses and curly hair, smiling outdoors on a sunny day, surrounded by green trees and shrubs.

    Devansh Mehta

    An investigative journalist turned Web3 innovator creating impact certificates so truth-telling and civic journalism can finally sustain themselves.

    Currently: Head of AI x Public Goods & Governance, Ethereum Foundation | Founder & CEO, VoiceDeck

    Affiliations: Ethereum Foundation, VoiceDeck Technologies, Microsoft Research India, Columbia University

    PROFILE →

  • A young man with messy blond hair, smiling and wearing a dark knit sweater, standing in front of a colorful circular backdrop.

    Monty Merlin Bryant

    A regenerative finance visionary building a global movement proving that Web3 can help billions of people regenerate the planet—if designed with intention.

    Currently: Founder & Source Steward, ReFi DAO | Sustainability & Regeneration Consultant

    Affiliations: ReFi DAO, PeoplePower, Trusted Seed, Celo Foundation

    PROFILE →

  • A man with curly hair and a beard, wearing a blazer over a t-shirt, standing indoors near a window.

    Duke Jones

    A veteran technologist building the cryptographic infrastructure for a user-controlled internet where privacy is default, not luxury.

    Currently: CEO & Founder, IdentiKey | Digital Sovereignty Advocate

    Affiliations: IdentiKey, Holochain, ReSource Network, Creation.Space

    PROFILE →

  • A smiling young man taking a selfie outdoors, with trees and greenery in the background.

    Humberto Besso-Oberto Huerta

    A postCapitalist urban innovator touring Latin America in a climate-positive bus that is both showroom and school for peer governance.

    Currently: Founder, Urbanika DAO | Sustainable Development Goal Ambassador

    Affiliations: Urbanika, SolarPunk Bus Project, Design Science Studio


    PROFILE →

  • A woman with long blonde hair smiling outdoors against a blurred green background.

    Sarah Baxendell

    A former Wall Street broker turned regenerative designer architecting a feminine design response to Earth's polycrisis.

    Currently: Co-Founder, ArtEcology | Regenerative Designer and Technologist

    Affiliations: ArtEcology, Regen Network, Hilltop Urban Farm, Walkers Reserve

    PROFILE →

  • A smiling woman with short hair wearing a white shirt and a thin necklace, standing in front of a black wall with chalk drawings and graffiti.

    Nikoline Arns

    A cross-disciplinary designer bridging art, technology, and social movements through NFTs that create perpetual funding streams for causes.

    Currently: Co-Founder, DoinGud & pact.social | Social Innovation Expert

    Affiliations: DoinGud, pact.social, El Roser Cooperative School, Akasha Hub Barcelona


    PROFILE →

  • Close-up of a man with a beard wearing a gray beanie hat and a blue collared shirt, outdoors in a park with a monument and trees in the background during the evening.

    Matt Prewitt

    A lawyer-technologist designing democratic mechanisms—from quadratic voting to data unions—that help society heal by sharing power better.

    Currently: President, RadicalxChange Foundation

    Affiliations: RadicalxChange Foundation, Data Freedom Act Working Group

    PROFILE →

  • A young woman smiling with curly black hair, wearing a gray shirt, standing against a brown background.

    Rithikha Rajamohan

    A civic technologist prototyping policy-as-protocol and launching mesh networks, stress-testing whether institutions of the future will look more like networks.

    Currently: Founder & Principal, V6A Labs | Civic Technologist

    Affiliations: V6A Labs, 221A, OpenTEAM, City of Vancouver

    PROFILE →

  • A man with short hair, a beard, and light-colored eyes outdoors with trees and greenery in the background.

    Tibet Sprague

    A communitarian technologist transforming social coordination platforms from VC-backed extractors into open-source cooperatives governed by users.

    Currently: Communitarian Technologist | Director of Technology, Hylo | Founder, Terran Collective

    Affiliations: Hylo, Terran Collective, Collaborative Technology Alliance, Platform Cooperativism Consortium

    PROFILE →

  • Woman with long black hair smiling and looking to the side, wearing a blue and white striped shirt against a green background.

    Deborah Tien

    A civic designer building "neighborhood serendipity engines" that help 75% of Americans who feel non-belonging find their fit and role.

    Currently: Co-Founder & Founding Steward, Common Agency

    Affiliations: Common Agency, Metagov, previously Twende (Tanzania)

    PROFILE →

  • Close-up portrait of a woman with short, curly dark hair, smiling softly, against a beige background.

    Andrea Farias

    A digital strategist building knowledge gardens that explore what regenerative digital spaces look like beyond extractive capitalism.

    Currently: Design Researcher, Strategist, and Storyteller | Founder, Diome

    Affiliations: Diome, previously Mozilla, Change.org

    PROFILE →

  • A young man with a hat and scarf sitting in a wicker chair, speaking into a microphone during an outdoor event, with blurred green foliage in the background.

    Benjamin Life

    A civic innovator exploring the mythic and material dimensions of systemic transformation, cultivating anti-rivalrous infrastructures for shared abundance and mutual care.

    Currently: Co-Founder & Network Steward, OpenCivics

    Affiliations: OpenCivics, Allo.Capital, General Forum on Ethereum Localism

    PROFILE →

  • A stylized black and white graphic of a tic-tac-toe game with circle pieces.

    Spencer Saar Cavanaugh

    A governance engineer and socio-technical architect designing on-chain coordination systems that improve organizational transparency and efficiency at scale.

    Currently: Network Steward, OpenCivics

    Affiliations: JournoDAO, OpenCivics

    PROFILE →

  • An artistic black and white illustration of a rat standing on a large egg with a sun and abstract symbols in the background.

    Exeunt

    A crypto-localist weaving web3 tools into Portland's underground of makers and experimentalists to seed economic democracy from the ground up.

    Currently: Localist Organizer & Crypto-Localism Researcher, Ethereal Forest | Co-Founder, PDX DAO

    Affiliations: Ethereal Forest, PDX DAO, EthPDX, The Open Machine, Bridgespace Commons, Commons Technology Project

    PROFILE →

  • A man with long blonde hair and a beard, wearing a wide-brimmed black hat and a colorful patterned poncho, standing in a forest with tall trees and sunset lighting.

    Darren Zal

    A systems architect turning at-risk forests into profitable living assets by returning them to Indigenous stewardship through regenerative finance innovation.

    Currently: System Architect, Kwaxala | Cosmo-Localist & Regenerative Finance Educator

    Affiliations: Kwaxala, Metacrisis.xyz, Token Engineering Commons, ReFi DAO, Design School for Regenerating Earth

    PROFILE →

  • Fantasy digital art depicting a split face of a woman with glowing eyes and blue hair merging with a wolf's face, surrounded by cosmic elements and clouds.

    Rather Mercurial

    A pseudonymous builder designing fractal coordination mechanisms that let DAOs scale as complex organisms while maintaining coherence.

    Currently: Web3 Citizen | DAO Governance Designer

    Affiliations: SuperBenefitDAO, Coordinape, Open Source Software Community

    PROFILE →

/ Get Involved

There’s a place for you in this work

Explore ways to weave within the network and grow into your practice.

How to Participate