👋 Hello, we are xBound!

"Weaving wisdom for a new era - Ancient Wisdom, Modern Knowledge, and Planetary Minds"

xBound is a highly curated gathering that brings diverse voices and fosters deeper dialogue about decentralized governance with participants from the East and West + Rest.

While there is a growing interest in decentralized organizing and governance, the predominant dialogue in the past 10 years focus solely on software tooling, token design, intellectual/academic frameworks, and have mostly been Western centric worldviews. Our industry overlooks the crucial human component or "humanware" and the centuries of wisdom ancestors have spent experimenting with decentralized coordination, community building, and governance. Many of these aspects still live in different cultures in the East, but are overlooked.

xBound emerged in 2023 to convene builders, researchers, theorists, and practioners from very diverse background to get below the surface level dialogue and get into the practicalities of decentralized organizing, the philosophies that influence our work, and the inner and collective work needed to make Web3 ecosystem successful.

We intentionally focus on diversity of backgrounds and experiences in crypto and create a safe space to invite all types of participants to share their wisdom about collective practices and challenges.

Our ultimate goal is to formulate an inclusive narrative around Web3, explore ways to make it less biased, and seed new research + initiatives that further explore human centric design. Without this approach, we risk repeating past errors and potentially creating a scarier system devoid of any soul. We hope to see more events beyond xBound that focus on intentional human and cultural bridge buliding.

✨ Why We are Building it

“The blockchain ecosystem is generally focused on western historical contexts. What can we learn from historical parallels from outside the western tradition?” - from EF Academic Grants Round 2023 Wishlist

• East & The Rest: A Global Perspective xBound challenges the notion that the 'world' in 'world-changing technology' is synonymous with the West. It recognizes the vast and varied landscapes of the East and other regions, emphasizing the need for a mosaic of values, stories, and narratives to create vibrant and thriving ecosystems. By bringing together drivers of decentralized organizing (with software and in real life) from all corners of the globe, including Asian communities and those curious about decentralized organizing outside the traditional Western sphere, xBound aspires to build a truly inclusive and globally representative platform.

• Ancient Future: Learning from the Past Contrary to popular belief, Decentralizations are not a novel invention. xBound stresses the importance of learning from the decentralized organizational technologies and knowledge practiced by our ancestors. By understanding and applying these ancient principles to contemporary challenges, we can forge a path that honors our past while innovating for the future.

• Transformative Journey: Embracing DAOism It is more than a normal residency; it's a transformative journey that emphasizes culture, connection, and community. xBound offers an immersive experience, fostering connections that engage the mind, hand, and heart. Attendees will find themselves in a setting where sovereign individuals engage with collectivist, relational cultures. They'll have the opportunity to meet local community builders, discuss various approaches to common challenges, and collectively seek solutions.

🖼 Residency Design

The sessions will be co-designed and facilitated with participants through a mix open spaces and curated anchor conversations. Participants will have spacious time for their own work, research, and resting during the residency. From past experience, we have found that embedding ourselves in the local culture and historical context creates a richer experience.

We use AoW (Art of Weaving) framework to design the space.

The fundamental concept of 'weaving' symbolizes the meeting of different entities. xBound was established to bridge the understanding gap between the West and the rest of the world.

While the continents of Asia, LatAm, and Africa carry deep wisdom and thousands of years of experiences with different forms of human organizing, the US and European cultures have predominantly excelled in design, documentation, and technology creation. To bridge this cultural gap, we need to create an environment conducive to mutual learning and deeper understanding.

There are key topics to be covered in two-week gathering:

In all these parts, we discuss the topics and themes of practical ways to make decentralized organizing possible across cultures, technology, etc. But we have these discussions through a process that helps participants understand ourselves better, understand diverse cultural and historial foundations we sit on, and co-create a collective vision for the future. These inspire the research we lead, tools we build, narratives we craft, and bridges we establish.

✅ What we've done so far

We have already completed several events, including SeoulBound in South Korea with an aim to connect wisdom and learning across East and Rest with an aim to center local perspectives in facilitating decentralized governance.

SeoulBound brought together 60 participants for a short residency in Korea. Five tangible projects emerged that participants are continuing to develop in support of the web3 ecosystem.

We also ran a smaller gathering in Taipei in 2023 with similar themes, in partnership with local DAOs.

👫🏻 Participant Curation

We focus on bringing a very diverse group of people, that goes beyond the usual scope of crypto gatherings, adding perspectives from practioners in the worlds outside of crypto. These include: community organizers, researchers, developers, DAO initiators, political leaders, ecosystem drivers, educator, artists, activists and folks building tools.

At last xBound, we had participants from 15 countries, from teens to elders, and several projects and individuals including : EF, Charmverse, Metacartel, Public Nouns, Nonce, BanklessDAO, FractonDAO, Member of National Assembly (South Korea), Impact Hub APAC, Invisible Farm, Ibraheem Art, Anna Alexa (Zuzalu partcipant) Yoseph Ayele (Zuzalu partcipant)

🪄 Catalysts and Partners

Our experiences and expertise span community building, DAOs, experience design, event production and intercultural dialogue. Some of the team members and partners driving this project include (but are not limited to) the following:

Songyi Lee - primary convener and experience designer. Zuconnect participant.

Partners :

• ABCD (Asia Based Community DAOs includes Da0,PlankerDAO,LXDAO,4Seas,SporeDAO and more)
• Enspiral DAO node
• DAOstar

Affliated Projects :

• xBound Session Directory
• ABCD(Asia Based Community DAOs)
• DAOeast Research
• Ecology-Tech-Art Club