Edge Esmeralda 2024 Recap

Thank you to everyone who trusted us & participated in the weird, wonderful experiment. We had a fantastic time, & can't wait for the next one!

Edge Esmeralda was a month-long “popup village” that brought together ~1,300 people who believe the future can be better and are actively working to make it happen. We gathered for a month of living, learning, and collaborating in Healdsburg, CA.

Our design principles focused on emergence & co-creation, so we didn’t actually know precisely what would happen — we created the container and then watched it unfold.

“Edge Esmeralda was one of the weirdest, wildest, most ambitious, most unexpected — and most fun — things I’ve ever watched unfold in Healdsburg.”

— Simone Wilson, Healdsburg Tribune

By the numbers

• ~1,300 people joined us during the month of June

  • 80 kids attended Edge Esmeralda

  • 6 weeks old & 86 years old, the ages of the youngest & oldest attendees

• 25 expert-led program tracks

• 551 sessions throughout the month

  • 93% were organized by attendees, with just 7% planned directly by the Edge Esmeralda organizing team!

  • 167 unique session hosts

• 3x increase in Bird Bike usage in the town during the event – and that doesn’t even count the bikes people rented or brought, separate from Bird!

• 350 redwood trees funded by donations from a solar-powered night market, organized entirely by attendees

Programming

Each of the 25 initial program tracks at Edge Esmeralda was organized by experts and partners in that field. These programs provided a solid structure to the month, but the bulk of the programming emerged organically from the community that joined us at Edge Esmeralda.

The community self-organized hundreds of activities, including AI-wearable soldering sessions, daily running clubs, sharing circles, impromptu lightning talks, night markets, and many others. If you’re curious, we left the full calendar up so you can see what took place. 

Here are some of the tracks and programs over the course of the month:

• Longevity Summer Camp: Organized by Laura Deming, this program brought together longevity leaders for a weekend of brainstorming the future of this industry. 

• Solar A-Frame Build: Nick Foley and Anson Yu led a group to build an A-frame made out of solar panels up in a formerly burned redwood forest close to town, which ended up hosting the spectacular Golden Future Night Market and the memorable Closing Ceremony.

• Hard Tech Weekend: Eli Dourado from the Abundance Institute teamed up with Ben Reinhardt from Speculative Technologies to organize a multi-day unconference. They invited leaders in sectors like energy, transportation, aerospace, defense, and manufacturing to share ideas on topics such as R&D, regulatory reform, financing capital-intensive projects, and beyond.

• Living Better, Living Longer: Organized by Justin Mares and Julia Lipton, this track will have daily workouts, an opportunity for a full blood draw and health assessment on Monday, and evening salons with leading health experts. The week will culminate in an all-day unconference on Friday. We’ll focus on ways to improve your health span and the latest research on mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health.

• Crypto Academic Workshop: We brought together the world’s leading academics in cryptography, systems design and game theory for a week of deep-dives on crypto problems, in partnership with Uniswap Foundation and with support from the Ethereum Foundation. 

• Cities of Tomorrow: This track, organized by Devon Zuegel, focused on urban planning, city management, and future city innovations.

• LabWeek: Organized by Protocol Labs and Foresight Institute, this program looked at the future of frontier tech including Neurotech, AI, VR/XR, and Biotech/Longevity. 

• Summer of Protocols: A week of focusing on futures and world-building with protocols, led by Tim Beiko and Venkatesh Rao.

• Edge Esmeralda Hackathon: Our hackathon program lasted the whole month and culminated in a hackathon with judges including Ivan Zhao (CEO & Founder of Notion). Huge thanks to Optimism and Prime Intellect as our main supporters. 

• Art at the Edge: We hosted an art program at Edge Esmeralda with the exhibit Imagined Realities: Perspectives on Change, curated by earthbits. Thank you to Optimism W❤️TA for the support!   

• And many, many more!

Highlights

Interview with City Managers of Healdsburg & Cloverdale

Jeff Kay & David Kelley, the City Managers of Healdsburg & Cloverdale, came to talk about what it’s like day-to-day to run a city in Sonoma County. The conversation was part of Cities week at Edge Esmeralda which was facilitated by Devon Zuegel, one of EE’s lead organizers. Half of the audience included Sonoma County locals, who contributed great questions to the conversation.

Party at Jendala’s studio

The first weekend, some of the EE attendees collaborated with longtime Healdsburg local artist Jendala to throw a party for the community in her beautiful studio space.

History tour by Eric Drew & Vivek

Local historian Eric Drew teamed up with an attendee named Vivek to host a walking tour of Healdsburg, with a focus on the Lost Buildings of Healdsburg.

Walking & cycling

Edge Esmeralda strongly encouraged attendees to walk or bike as much as possible. EE is all about healthy living, protecting the environment, community connection, and reducing impacts on local communities; walking & biking enable all of these things by keeping us moving, not using fossil fuels, creating moments of connection as we cross paths with people we know, and minimizing parking and car traffic that could impact Healdsburg residents.

Solar A-frames

Attendees constructed a “Solar A-frame”, a simple off-the-grid cabin in the woods whose roof is made of solar panels. This project was initiated by Nick Foley, one of the EE attendees who is based in Gualala. He collaborated with Canadian attendee Anson Yu, generous Healdsburg locals David Baeli & Fred Euphrat who lent their beautiful wooded property, and dozens of other EE attendees who lent a had in “raising the barn” and making it a reality.

Community dinners

EE hosted community dinners, specifically designed to be family-friendly. A Sonoma County local named Mozhi (pictured in orange in the bottom-right) became one of the most active participants. He even wrote and recorded a song about Edge Esmeralda, which he performed as a surprise at one of the community dinners!

Open house for locals to ask questions

Before EE began, the organizing team made a point of meeting with as many locals as possible to share what they were doing about EE, get their feedback, and welcome them to join in. One of the community outreach events was an open house where locals were invited to ask questions, and EE provided wine for everyone to enjoy together.

See you next year ☀️

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