Learn more here: https://github.com/re-public-dao/re-public

Our personal data in the metaverse is like our physical body in the universe -- having autonomy and control over it should be a human right. To achieve any level of humane civic infrastructure, we must enshrine data rights in the software that we use. If we rely on policies and private company compliance, the individual will always be at the mercy of powers beyond their control.

Re-Public aims to remove all intermediaries between a person and the data they produce (and have produced). This direct connection empowers the individual to express their will through their data without external influence. Re-Public is open source software and uses permissionless networks to empower as many use cases as the human imagination can conjure. Many of which are impossible today because of our privatized data silos.

As the name implies, Re-Public aims to re-assert civic ideals in the digital age and help align the new digital public with a visceral sense of autonomy and equality. Not many of us appreciate how much public spaces, and public dynamics, have drifted from their stated ideals over the last two decades. Few tools have even tried to address the problem, and none have succeeded.

When we are out in public now, our faces, biometrics, and locations are constantly recorded, analyzed, and leveraged for profits and control. The only reason we as a public have allowed this is because we don't have an embodied sense for when this is happening and its consequences. If a physical equivalent of these processes were to manifest, it would be a giant human rights violation.

Re-Public gives agency back to the individual by leveraging common technology in novel ways. It provisions a private cloud for each user and provides tools to aggregate their data from all their devices and all their services across the internet. It allows for secure sharing and selling of data via peer-to-peer networks, but it has no vested interest in whether users choose to do so.

For the actual usage of the private cloud, Re-Public offers a unique SDK that allows developers to create experiences without ever seeing or stewarding user data. Developers use synthetic approximations of users to create software, and then put it in a decentralized app store. Everything from the number of downloads to usage metrics are opaque unless some generous users opt in to sharing that data. Not only is everything private and anonymous by default, but it is sovereign by default as well.

Individuals can now enjoy experiences that integrate all of their data, while not having to trust any developer or private company. Employees of the Re-Public org can't access an individual's data, nor can the developer. Parts of this solution have existed for many years and are well-known, but Re-Public puts them all together into a cohesive, purposeful solution for asserting data rights through control, rather than law, policy, or trust.

If you believe software is part of the civics discussion, Re-Public offers the strongest foundation for individuals to truly express their wishes. It does this without explicit or implicit coercion because its incentives are the unique incentives of each individual that uses it. It helps people achieve their pre-existing goals and desires rather than nudge them toward behaviors that benefit external systems and entities.

Only when people can express their full selves, without a loss of control or fear of retaliation, can we have the public spaces and civic engagement that projects like OpenCivics aim to manifest.

As you can imagine, it's near impossible to take VC funding for a software project like this while retaining the purpose and vision. We are only grant funded and we appreciate any help the OpenCivics community can provide. Thank you!