Funding the Commons Berlin Forum 2025 is a two-day forum bringing together technologists, researchers, artists, and organizers to explore how we design systems that hold up under pressure and serve the public over time.
The focus is on Infrastructures of Resilience, i.e. how coordination happens at scale, how trust is built into systems, and how public tools—digital and otherwise—can be governed and sustained by the communities that rely on them.
Together, we’ll explore:
- Funding models for open and shared resources
- Approaches to decentralized governance and public-interest AI
- Portable, privacy-preserving digital identity systems
- Infrastructure design that reflects social—not just technical—priorities
- Design spaces for stewarding and supporting the commons
- Financial inclusion and access as a first principle
- Learnings and applications with civic tech
- Collective worldbuilding and speculative practices for co-creation
Participants will work across disciplines through hands-on formats aimed at sharing knowledge, surfacing challenges, and testing ideas. Our program includes:
The program includes:
- Lightning talks, roundtables, and technical + subject matter focused workshops co-facilitated with partners including Web3Privacy Now, Deep Work, Breadchain Cooperative and more
- A live action role play (LARP) exploring collective response to systemic disruption
- A curated art and research exhibition by Stina Gustavsson (Dept of Decentralization)
- Confirmed: CROSSLUCID
- Cryptographic games and embodied learning
- A co-creation lab for zines, screenprinting, and prototyping
- Peer mentorship and technical exchange with subject matter experts
With support from Protocol Labs, NEAR Foundation, Octant, and Drips, this forum brings together those building, questioning, or maintaining the systems that shape how we live—and how we adapt to what comes next. Join us.
Speakers TBA
👉 We believe access should not be a barrier. If ticket costs are a challenge, please reach out to us at contact@fundingthecommons.io—we’ll do our best to accommodate. If you’re a developer, researcher, or artist, use code BUILDER50 for 50% off.
Scholarships are also available, with priority for actively enrolled students.
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