I had the privilege of interviewing Ferananda Ibarra in June about Commons Engine, one of the first support organisations in the Holochain Ecosystem. For us it’s a pivotal resource in our Holochain community offering incubation and education programs, consultancy and media.
“Commons Engine is an agency in service to the whole ecosystem”
- Ferananda Ibarra
Feranada Ibarra, as part of the MetaCurrency Project was involved in much of the foundational work for Holochain, Ceptr and the Holo Hosting network. Following the Initial Community Offering (ICO) for the Holo network in 2018, she, and a group of co-creators, spawned Commons Engine as a realisation of their “heartfelt devotion to the web of life”.
What is the “Commons”?
In 1968 ecologist Garrett Hardin published the essay "Tragedy of The Commons", in which he stated that commonly used land is destined for ruin unless its capacity is well above its number of users. Elinor Ostrom (2009 Nobel Prize in Economics Science winner) shared examples of small communities coordinating to share common resources without depleting them or requiring the rule of law to enforce their arrangements.
“A Commons arises when people decide to steward shared wealth themselves directly with a commitment to fairness, sustainability, social solidarity, and participation” - David Bollier
ProSocial World specifically uses Elinor Ostrom’s 8 design principles for Common Pool Resource management to help diverse groups to find collaborative ways to share the Commons equitably. We often share information about ProSocial World’s events and updates in “What’s hAppening?”
Current and Future Projects of Commons Engine
“Our interdependent world requires a radical redesign of our systems of governance, economics, computation, communications and coordination to ensure that all species can thrive in their own habitats.” - Ferananda Ibarra
The Commons Engine’s team of Ferananda Ibarra, Art Brock, Sheri Herndon, and a select group of contractors, offer a wide variety of products, services and experiences that contribute to the regeneration of the commons. Mostly focused on economic and culture design, and empowered by Holochain's groundbreaking technology, Commons Engine are determined to shape a future where value creation transcends the limits of traditional capitalism. By strategically supporting innovative organisations and communities they can help them to develop healthy patterns of flow for coordination and sense-making at scale by:
sharing the productive capacity of land and managing resources more efficiently, tracking and incentivizing contributions and the preservation of the commons.
creating mechanisms for feedback loops to enable collective intelligence so organisations and communities can see their systems vitality and meta impact.
designing economic and governance systems for communities of intent so they generate healthy cultural patterns in alignment with the spirit of the commons.
Crypto Commons
Commons Engine purposefully works to spark ingenuity and encourage thinkers, builders, and engaged citizens to self-organise, and provide direct solutions for a Crypto Commons global revolution. In collaboration with Future fields, they are holding a metanarrative that is counterpoint to crypto capitalism. In practical terms they are interested in developing:
Commons-based peer production process that uses distributed ledger technologies to cryptographically secure a commons, anchored by a legal schema.
Unenclosable, cryptographically secure custodial entities which legally hold assets in a nondominium way. Entities that, and enables decentralised value creation, management and governance, including data commons.
Currency Design and Value Accounting
Within Commons Engine, there is an ongoing prototyping effort for a program called Recurv, an acronym representing "Regenerative Currencies (re)volution." It serves as an incubation dojo, providing a platform for individuals who are actively involved in shaping future social and economic systems. Currently, the program is hosting its inaugural cohort focusing on "Commons Economics and Regenerative Bioregions." The four participating organisations are collectively making a significant impact on five distinct bioregions across the globe fostering regenerative economies through currency design and value accounting.
The first four Recurv Incubator cohort participants are:
S.A.N.E. (Sustainable, All-considerate, Numinous, Evolutionary future ) is a project initiating a series of decentralised resiliency pilots across three bioregions: the Interior Temperate Rainforest of BC, Canada; the Amazon Rainforest in Ecuador; and a bioregion in the Ecuadorian Andes. SANE Bioregions offer support across multiple stakeholders and perspectives, collaborating with indigenous leaders, as well as with municipal and provincial governments. As part of Commons Engine’s first incubator they are contributing to the design of the SANE Economy, a regenerative system “filled with ethics and values that are aligned with the fundations of life on earth”.
In collaboration with MetaIntegral, Commons Engine developed a proposal paper for a Value Accounting software. Through the Recurv incubator it will be updated and adapted with an emphasis on bioregions and food systems. By utilising the MetaImpact Framework, their aims are to bring transparency and understanding to the intricate dynamics of value creation, ultimately paving the way for more conscious and regenerative economic practices. The plan is to implement it in TierraS bioregional hub.
TierraS, a bioregional hub in Costa Rica, establishes a bioregional resiliency hub that integrates ecological principles and regenerative agriculture practices to create a self-sustaining and diverse farming system. The farm will operate as a model for resilient agriculture that can adapt to changing climate conditions and create food security in the community. This farm will provide supporting agricultural services that facilitate the proliferation of regenerative agriculture in the region and educate the surrounding community on best practices while exploring future applications of holistic, ecologically integrated systems thinking
Dark Soil Studio recently onboarded to the Recurv incubator program. Working with food cooperatives they are building Plenty, a collective food purchasing application, among other hApps built in Holochain.
How can the community engage with Commons Engine?
Regenerative Economies for Intentional Communities
The second cohort of the Recurv incubator cohort is tailored to Intentional Communities, pre-register for information and to be be informed when it launches
Currency Design for Social Change - A Self-paced & Online Course
In collaboration with The MetaCurrency Project they are offering a series of “Self-paced Currency Design Masterclasses” on Udemy, the first of which is directed towards social changemakers. It’s a thought provoking, insightful and instructive course for anyone who wants literacy in emerging economic and social systems. Having taken it myself, I really recommend the course to all those interested in alternative currencies like mutual credit!
Consulting
Commons Engine offers consultancy to projects on a 1:1 basis. They have contributed to projects like Xsolla, JustOne Organics and Kind Cities.
Do you want to participate in the Recurv incubator or would want to start your own cohort? Check out their Deep Value Investing page!
Do you have a project that you want help with? Book a session
Useful Links:
Commons Engine Website - currently undergoing a transformation to match the branding you see on the Deep Value Accelerator page
Welcoming our New Head of Developer Relations, Growing our Dev Community - Developers have always been a focus of the Holochain Foundation, and with the release of beta 0.1.x and continued development of 0.2.x & 0.3.x it is time to more actively focus on supporting both new devs as well as more developers from a variety of backgrounds. As a step towards that goal, we are very pleased to welcome Mark Franks as the Head of Developer Relations.
DWeb Camp 2023 + Holochain- “Conference” doesn’t really sum it up. Five days at an immersive woodland camp, hosted by the Internet Archive and attended by the best minds of the distributed web, is a special time. “The work” is not at DWeb Camp, it’s back at our organizations, deep in our codebases, and with our communities. The relationships, the cross pollination, the alignment between projects, policies, and people? That’s DWeb Camp.”
Holochain Events page - check out the new Holochain events page including links to their regular hAppy Hour.
Neighbourhoods Events, Demos, and Next Steps - “In the last month, the team has had the pleasure of attending a handful of events across the world, in New Zealand, Europe, and the US.” Check out their recaps.
If you have a Holochain Project and have news, events, articles or videos you’d like to submit for possible Newsletter inclusion, please contact us and/or become a Creator/Member!
🌟Other Related News & Events
Microsolidarity Summer Camps 2023- Skamokawa, Washington State, USA July 15-21&Berlin, Germany July 18-23. “Microsolidarity is a community-building practice. We're weaving the social fabric that underpins shared infrastructure. Come practice with us! In the spirit of microsolidarity, the purpose of this event is for the network to come together, cultivate relationships of trust, cross-pollinate across different communities and practice meaningful co-creation. So whether you are a seasoned microsolidaritarian or just becoming familiar with what we’re up to - we’d love to have you!” Register here for the EU Camp & here for the USA Camp
Regenerating the Earth with ProSocial - 6 week learning journey beginning July 17th! “Together we will explore the question “How can we collaborate in service to the regeneration of the Earth?” Over 6 weeks, we will explore the planetary predicament humanity is in with an empowering focus on how to guide the intentional cultural evolution of trust and cooperation at different scales. This includes real-world examples of landscape restoration where diverse people come together around the shared purpose of restoring rivers and bringing forests back to degraded landscapes. Each week we will meet for 1 hour seminars as a whole group to introduce key content; then you will have the option of attending one or more 90 minute smaller group conversations, which are more like workshops.”
Responsible Tech Summit: Reimagining Social Media for a Better Future - September 14th at the SVA Theater, NYC. All Tech Is Human is a non-profit building a global, multistakeholder, and multidisciplinary network to tackle wicked tech & society issues and co-create a tech future aligned with the public interest. This gathering for 275 will bring together a mix of individuals across civil society, government, industry, and academia. Tibet Sprague of Hylo.com will be attending!
NextGen Software: “Our current priority is getting as many devs as possible into our ecosystem, working with the OASIS APIs. Anyone who is interested might like to join our HoloNET group chat - as it's where our conversation on documentation currently is. https://t.me/holonetchat
Remember, if you are a developer looking for gigs, check out the leads on Dev-HC on Discord, at the Gig-Matching Section!
If you have a Holochain Project or Supportive organization, and have job openings, please do let us know so we can post your listings!
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