Overview

As governments around the world erase history from the Web, we need to build an information commons that is private, resilient, and beyond the control of any one corporation or government. At the next DWeb Bay Area Meetup, we welcome leading thinkers who are building the digital commons of tomorrow.

Join us Tuesday April 15, 6:00 PM-9 PM at the awesome headquarters of the Internet Archive in SF, to explore how we can decentralize information systems, from hardware to community networks. We have invited founders working to reunite refugees separated from family members, innovators in platforms to fund this work, and cutting-edge technologists building some of the infrastructure that can help them.

We’re excited to welcome Al Morris, co-founder of KOII for a deep dive into the future of decentralized coordination and peer-to-peer computing.

Morris will explore the core motivations for decentralization, diving into how cryptography and coordination systems form the foundation of truly open digital ecosystems. He’ll discuss emerging paradigms like liquid democracy, mesh Wi-Fi, peer vs. edge computing, and verifiable compute tasks. The talk will also touch on crowdsourced archiving, open-source development, and how we can collectively build resilient infrastructure for the decentralized web.

We’re honored to welcome to DWeb Chris and David Mikkelsen, founders of Refunite.org, a nonprofit that supports a network of more than 1.1 million people in Sub-Sahran Africa, helping refugees reconnect with their missing family members. Working with 20+ mobile operators and tech companies, REFUNITE is operational in 22 countries and functions as a hybrid between the world of technology, business and non-profit. They need a new set of technological solutions that address privacy, networking, and banking in a population in which 65%+ are illiterate and off the grid.

Also joining us is David Casey, CEO of Funding the Commons, who will give us a sneak peek of the new “Kickstarter”-style platform and digital archive he is incubating for refugee creators. David is working with https://app.akashic.xyz/ to create a decentralized fundraising and storytelling tool and immutable archive for displaced populations

📍 Location: Internet Archive, 300 Funston Avenue, San Francisco
📅 Date & Time: Tuesday, April 15, 2025, 6-9 PM

What to Expect:

Need a friendly community to accelerate your tech knowledge? A place where people with aligned values come together to share, collaborate and learn? DWeb Bay Area might just be your place. We welcome activists, policymakers, artists and technologists who believe in values driven tech.

You’ll find:

• Talks on decentralized architectures, edge computing, and peer-to-peer networks
• Demos of Decentralized P2P tech, and self-hosted alternatives
• Discussions on privacy-first principles, self-sovereignty, and reducing dependency on solutions that hold all the control
• Networking with like-minded tech professionals, open-source contributors & funders

OUR SPEAKERS

AL MORRIS, FOUNDER of KOII

Al Morris is co-founder of KOII, a network dedicated to peer-to-peer computing, the next evolution of edge computing, and a solution for commons architecture in the decentralized world.

A long-time innovator in decentralized systems, Morris previously co-founded The Blockchain Institute in Chicago and has worked on community-centric technologies like Concierge Connect, a mesh Wi-Fi initiative launched during his time at Queen’s University. His mission is to enable crowdsourced, zero-cost systems that empower people to build and coordinate without centralized control.

Morris is also the mind behind Prometheus Swarm, a new tool for collaborative code development that fuses open-source values with AI-powered support for innovators—turning “vibe coding” into stable, scalable systems that leave more time for rock climbing, sailing, and exploring the outdoors.

For a deeper look at the KOII ecosystem, visit docs.koii.network, and check out Al’s blog at econ3.org for insights into the evolving Web3 landscape.

DAVID CASEY, CEO OF FUNDING THE COMMONS

David Casey leads Funding the Commons, connecting builders and funders to advance new models for public goods funding. He focuses on designing open systems that drive long-term impact.

By bridging diverse communities from Web2, Web3, research, philanthropy, and industry, FTC aims to cultivate a sustainable ecosystem.

Their focus is on the development of independent thought-leadership, and the integration of funding platforms, strategic allocation of resources, and the incubation of projects with significant potential across the public goods landscape.

DAVID MIKKELSEN TROENSENGAARD & CHRIS MIKKELSEN, CO-FOUNDERS OF REUNITE.ORG

REFUNITE founders David and Christopher Mikkelsen met Mansour, a young Afghan refugee, in 2005. Mansour had lost contact with his parents and five siblings during the family’s escape from Kabul and the Taliban. When crossing into Pakistan, a human trafficker tore the family members from each other.

Mansour spent four months on a perilous journey through Russia and across Eastern Europe. He eventually found his way to Copenhagen where he met the Mikkelsen brothers.

While helping Mansour search for his family, David and Christopher quickly discovered that existing family tracing programs were lacking in using collaborative technology. Paper forms completed in pencil meant little information was shared across agencies, across borders or across conflicts.

Although they eventually located one of Mansour’s younger brothers in a small city in Southern Russia and help reunite the two in Moscow after six years of separation, David and Christopher knew they needed to find a better way to help the world’s hundreds of thousands of refugees who desperately wanted to reconnect with long-lost relatives and friends.

In 2008, they launched REFUNITE,  a global entity assisting refugees in tracing missing family members across the world.

YOUR HOSTS

We are the organizers of the Bay Area node of the DWeb, a global community connecting the people, projects and protocols essential to building a decentralized web. A web that is more private, reliable, secure and open. We host monthly meetups, usually on the 2nd Tuesday at the Internet Archive Headquarters, twice monthly Tools & Weaving Potlucks at homes in SF, and a monthly discussion group in Oakland.

—Steve Elleman, Day Waterbury, Wendy Hanamura

Read about the DWeb Principles here.

Learn more about our DWeb Global community here.

AGENDA

6:00 PM = Welcome drinks, food & networking

6:30 PM = Presentations Begin

8:00 PM = More dinner, networking, and sharing.