Edge City Newsletter — May 2025

Final updates on Edge Esmeralda & applications for Edge City Bhutan are now open!

Timour Kosters

May 23, 2025

Hello friends! Timour here. I hope you’re having a great day. ☀️  

Edge Esmeralda is just around the corner! From May 24 to June 21, we’ll be in Healdsburg, CA, prototyping new ways of living, working, and collaborating together.

If you want to join, we recently made day, weekend, and week passes available. There’s still time to be part of it.

Looking ahead: we’re planning an 8-day Edge Expedition to Bhutan (Sep 14–21). It’s a focused and immersive trip with thirty awesome people to explore ancient wisdom, frontier technologies, and what a future full-scale popup village might look like in this extraordinary country. Applications are now open!

‍RESERVE YOUR SPOT →

Remind me, what is Edge City?

Edge City creates popup villages around the world that convene people working at the frontiers of science, technology, and culture.

Our mission is to act as a ‘society incubator’ – a living lab to experiment with new ideas, technologies, cultures, and organizations. All with the goal of advancing human flourishing.

We’re building towards a global network of temporary and permanent innovation hubs. Check out our roadmap on how we plan to scale into a network city.

Collaboration is essential to achieve our vision. That’s why we aim to partner with folks who are interested in hosting residencies for builders, scientists and artists at our popup villages. Please reach out here.

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Calls to action

Edge Esmeralda (May 24 — June 21)

‍Edge Esmeralda is a monthlong popup village bringing together ~1,000 people from the frontiers of tech, science, culture, and policy to experiment and imagine what a better society could be like - and start building it.

The village is grounded in four core principles: it’s multidisciplinary, multigenerational, co-created, and healthy by default.

Edge Esmeralda is a prototype for something bigger: a permanent town called Esmeralda.

The Edge Esmeralda Wiki has everything you need to prepare, from programming info to logistics, tickets, and community guidelines.

READ THE WIKI →

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Programming

Every week at Edge Esmeralda focuses on a central theme, each containing several tracks with talks, hands-on workshops, creative sessions, and experiments led by pioneers in their respective fields.

☀️ May 24 – June 1: Protocols for Flourishing | AI, Consciousness, Health, Governance, Protocol Design, Human Potential

☀️ June 1 – 8: Reality Reinvented | d/acc, Hard Tech, Techno-Humanism, Decentralized Governance

☀️ June 8 – 15: Environments of Tomorrow | Neurotech, Education, Agtech, Cities

☀️ June 15 – 21: Decentralized Technologies | Crypto, Governance, Decentralized AI

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Explore our full programming guide to learn more about the daily schedule and meet the people who’ll be hosting workshops, talks, and experiments in each track.

Community Calendar

Edge Esmeralda is a co-created experience. While we’ve designed weekly themes and core programming, the real magic comes from what participants bring: spontaneous workshops, evening salons, shared meals, workouts, or musical jam sessions.

We’ve set up Social Layer to discover what’s happening, RSVP to events, and contribute your own. Learn how to use our community calendar in this blog post.

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Long Journey Residents

We’re excited to introduce the 14 residents of the Long Journey Residency at Edge Esmeralda 2025, a monthlong launchpad for unconventional ideas, in partnership with Long Journey VC (early investors in SpaceX, Anduril, Uber, Notion, and Loom).

From neural interfaces to synthetic biology, these builders are shaping the future across AI, neurotech, health, and hardware.

Meet the Long Journey residents in this blog post.

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Kids and Families - Partnership with All One Thing

To build the future, we have to include the next generation.

Edge Esmeralda welcomes families, and together with All One Thing we’re launching Edgeucation Camp, a new kind of learning space for kids and adults alike.

Let’s build experiences that highlight the incredible things that can come from intergenerational learning.

If you have a story, project, or demo to share with young minds, please fill out this form to help us design this camp.

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Join us!

Tickets for Edge Esmeralda are still available, including day and weekend passes. Prices increase every Monday.


If you have any questions prior to joining or during your time in the village, please don’t hesitate to reach out at info@edgeesmeralda.com.

APPLY TO JOIN →

Edge City Bhutan (Sept. 14 — 21)

This September, we’re heading to Bhutan for an 8-day Edge Expedition (Sept 14–21, 2025). We’re bringing 30 curious minds to explore consciousness and frontier topics alongside governmental leaders, Buddhist monks, and tech innovators.

Join us on this trip for spiritual, cultural, and intellectual immersion in a country that’s redefining social development through values like human flourishing and sustainability.

Check out the Edge City Bhutan website for more information and apply to join using the button below.

APPLY HERE →

Watch & Listen

A Day in the Life at Edge City Lanna

Edge City Lanna was our last full-scale popup village—set in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in late 2024. Navo joined us and captured a glimpse of daily life in a village focused on human flourishing.

Watch the video to experience what it’s like to co-create, live, and build together.

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The Case for Onchain Capital Coordination - Kevin Owocki & Rena O'Brien

Kevin Owocki (co-founder of Allo.Capital) and Rena O’Brien (Executive Director at Gitcoin) joined the Edge City Podcast to discuss onchain capital allocation, funding local projects, the state of DAOs, human flourishing, and much more!

Links: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube

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Building Cybernetic Communities and Network Societies

I was invited as a guest on the cyber•Fund podcast to talk about Edge City, popup cities, the philosophy of network societies, plurality, collective governance, and many other topics. It was a fun conversation, and you can listen to it here.

What We’re Reading

What is a Popup Village? - Carolina Sculti

Edge City is known for its popup villages, but what does that actually mean in practice? Carolina unpacks the design logic behind the format: how it differs from conferences and retreats, what principles guide the village, and why it’s an ideal sandbox for prototyping new ways of living, learning, and building together.

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What makes people flourish? - Victor Counted, Byron R. Johnson, Tyler J. VanderWeele

A groundbreaking study of over 200,000 people in 22 countries reveals surprising insights into well-being and human flourishing. This research challenges conventional metrics, emphasizing the importance of purpose, community, and meaning over mere economic indicators.

Quotes and Reflections

“We need as much cultural innovation as we have technological innovation.” - Sean McDonald

“Attending Edge Esmeralda was one of the highlights of 2024. With the World Residency it’s a no brainer” - Arthaud

“October last year could barely run a mile, today: finished a half marathon. Started running during Edge City with zero experience, just stubbornness and love for taking care of my body” - Qendresa

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As always, thank you so much for reading. We are excited to see you all at Edge Esmeralda in a few days! ☀️

Timour & the Edge City team