Audrey Tang (Taiwan’s first Digital Minister) sits down for a fireside chat with Edge City’s Timour Kosters to talk about digital democracy, the philosophy of plurality, civic technology, and what the rest of the world can learn from Taiwan’s democratic experiments.

Recorded at Edge Esmeralda, held in Healdsburg, CA, from May 24 - June 21, 2025.

LINKS

Audrey Tang: https://x.com/audreyt

Timour Kosters: https://x.com/timourxyz

Edge Esmeralda: https://www.edgeesmeralda.com

ABOUT EDGE CITY

Edge City convenes people working at the frontiers of tech, science, and society in popup villages across the globe.

Follow Edge City on Twitter: https://x.com/JoinEdgeCity

Learn more about Edge City: https://edgecity.live/ --

CHAPTERS

(00:00) Introduction: Audrey Tang and the Idea of Plurality

(01:53) From Civic Hacker to Minister

(04:48) The Sunflower Movement and GovZero

(09:42) Tech for Collective Action: Open Data and Pandemic Response

(13:01) Democracy as Defense: Radical Transparency in Taiwan

(17:12) Global Applications: Bowling Green, Japan, and California

(26:00) What is Plurality? From Conflict to Collaboration

(31:02) High-Bandwidth Democracy and Civic Muscle

(35:07) Real-World Plurality in Japan and California

(43:07) AI, Education & Civic Competency

(47:50) Q&A: Gen Z, Radical Interoperability and Future Tools

(56:57) Q&A: DAOs, Community Design and the Power of Forking

Glen Weyl builds new social technologies for collective decision-making, plural coordination, and democratic innovation. He leads the Plurality Institute and co-founded RadicalxChange to turn experimental ideas into institutional prototypes.

In this conversation, Glen Weyl and host Timour Kosters explore the intersection of technology, democracy, and civic infrastructure. From Taiwan’s civic tech to new models of money and collective decision-making, this chat covers the intellectual foundations of the Plurality movement.

Recorded at Edge City Austin, held in Austin, TX, from March 2-7, 2025.

Links

Glen Weyl: https://glenweyl.com/

Timour Kosters: https://x.com/timourxyz

About Edge City

Edge City convenes people working at the frontiers of tech, science, and society in popup villages across the globe.

Follow Edge City on Twitter: https://x.com/JoinEdgeCity

Learn more about Edge City: https://edgecity.live

Chapters

(00:00) Glen Weyl's work and the vision for Edge City

(01:43) The growing chasm between technology & democracy

(04:46) From Star Trek to Snow Crash, the cultural collapse of future visions

(06:18) Two threats to democracy: chaos and control

(09:54) Network societies vs. network states

(12:01) The 3 political ideologies of the 21st century

(15:22) Why Plurality is the most viable path

(18:05) Lessons from Taiwan - GovZero, Pol.is & civic tech

(22:50) Japan’s AI-augmented grassroots politics

(31:53) New models of money

(37:18) Designing experiments at Edge City popup villages

(44:25) Decentralized governance, power vacuums & quadratic voting

(53:04) Community currencies and plural governance models

(58:35) From temporary popup village to permanent city

(01:03:52) Integration, not exit

(01:12:11) Identity and community recovery

(01:15:49) Mathematics and Plurality, final thoughts

Kevin Owocki is the founder of Gitcoin and co-founder of Allo Capital, focused on regenerative crypto economics.

Rena O'Brien is a web3 strategist and DAO builder with experience spanning Gitcoin and global capital networks.

In this episode, Kevin and Rena explore why onchain capital allocation matters—and how programmable money can transform how we fund public goods, startups, and impact at scale. They discuss new coordination tools, the philosophy behind capital as a force for good, and what it might look like to fund “missions not markets” in the years ahead.

If you're curious about the future of funding, DAOs, or the next layer of crypto beyond speculation, this one's for you.

Links

Kevin Owocki: https://x.com/owocki

Rena O'Brien: https://www.linkedin.com/in/renaobrien

Allo Capital: https://www.allo.capital

Timour Kosters: https://x.com/timourxyz

About Edge City

Edge City convenes people working at the frontiers of tech, science, and society in popup villages across the globe.

Follow Edge City on Twitter: https://x.com/JoinEdgeCity

Learn more about Edge City: https://edgecity.live

Chapters

(00:00) Introduction

(02:51) Why Tokenized Capital Allocation?

(05:26) The 8 Forms of Capital Explained

(08:59) The Impact of Gitcoin

(10:18) What’s Broken with Capital Allocation Today?

(14:25) The Case for Onchain Allocation Systems

(17:50) Introducing Allo Capital

(21:17) Funding Local Projects with AlloIRL

(28:01) Relevance to Edge City

(39:36) Owocki's New Book: How to DAO

(46:36) Gitcoin as DAO

(54:57) Popup Villages & Human Flourishing