We’re not the first people to gather off-grid, share big ideas, or prototype a new way of living.

In this session, we’ll take a look back at a timeline of experimental environments that shaped the culture of Silicon Valley: from geodesic dome communes and the Whole Earth Catalog, to ARPA’s research labs and the Homebrew Computer Club. Many of the most important breakthroughs of the last century emerged from unexpected, temporary, and intentional spaces like these.

We’ll explore the cultural and structural conditions that made those environments uniquely suited for innovation, and ask what it would take to build something like that now.

Then we’ll break into small groups to reflect on our own experience here at Edge City:

• What’s been working?

• What would it take for real breakthroughs and real flourishing to emerge from a place like this?

Come help imagine the future of Edge City and the next wave of technological/sociological innovation ✨