An entrepreneur and policy advocate. Former Governance Lead @Web3Foundation. MPP in Global Affairs @Yale. @ethereum Fellow. CEO of @zefihub & https://xitter.cf/t.co/WBKb0zTGvb
Berlin
Joined August 2009
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After Nawafith Media and Nawafith Governance, today we open a third window: Nawafith Research.
What are #Russian and #Chinese research centres saying about us? What do Israeli universities write about #Syria? And when Syria is discussed on a campus somewhere, who sits on the chairs: Syrians on the panel, or only on the slides?
I used to answer these the slow way with forty tabs, a translation window, one evening at a time. So we built what I wanted to open every morning.
550 institutions, 48 countries, 13 languages. Every piece with a summary in Arabic and English, where it stands on the transition, and the sentence that decided it. Plus a calendar of Syria events, with a mark where Syrians are actually speaking.
Free, no login, and we don't track who reads.
Next on the bench: #Azora, one of the first governance language models, trained on Syria's official gazette and on how Syrians really write to their government. Then the notch app for Mac and Windows, the phone app, and Nawafith Education.
Link: research.nawafith .net
كلُّ جريدة رسمية سورية، كلُّ موقعٍ حكومي، كلُّ قناةٍ رسميَّة، كلُّ خبرٍ من مصادرِ الدولة. على الإنترنت، مُفهرَس، قابلٌ للبحث.
٧٤٢ عدداً من الجرائد الرسميَّة حتَّى الآن، بدءاً بكلِّ عددٍ منذ ٨ كانون الأول ٢٠٢٤. والعقودُ الأقدمُ، حتَّى ١٩٤٠، آتية: بعضُها مرقمن، بعضُها في #دمشق الآن في صناديقَ بانتظار الرقمنة.
سنُنشرُها ونصنفّها تباعاً.
#سوريا #الأرشيف_السوري
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got interviewed by @AbdullahOkaily for @WIRED on the tech systems Syrians built during the war.
infrastructure is jurisdiction. whoever controls the network decides who speaks, transacts, exists.
a payment rail is a border. a cell tower is a checkpoint. an internet kill switch is a siege weapon.
syrians understood this before the whitepapers caught up.
🔗 wired.me/story/inside-the-te…
📣 Calling all startups in emerging markets with ready-to-deploy blockchain-based solutions for social good. Apply for mentorship and equity-free funding up to US$100,000 in ETH, BTC or USDC from the UNICEF Venture Fund. Deadline: 10 March 2026. For info on requirements, eligibility criteria and how to apply 📷 unicef.link/blockchain-call
📣 Calling all startups in emerging markets with ready-to-deploy blockchain-based solutions for social good.
Apply for mentorship and equity-free funding up to US$100,000 in ETH, BTC or USDC from the UNICEF Venture Fund.
Deadline: 10 March 2026.
For info on requirements, eligibility criteria and how to apply ➡️ unicef.link/blockchain-call
1) Yesterday, the @Web3foundation kicked off the Kusama Vision program, breathing life into the Second Age of #Kusama.
We brought together an amazing set of 15 curators and 6 advisors who are stepping in to carry the vision forward.
2) If you’re building something that feels a little early, weird, or still hard to explain, I hope you take this thread as a small nudge.
KV is looking for projects across three pillars:
• Zero-Knowledge Tech , making privacy ordinary
• Proof-of-Personhood, personhood that belongs to humans, not platforms
• Art & Culture, and the “weird internet” experiments that keep a network alive
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Today we are announcing we won't run another cohort of Decentralized Voices.
Over its cohorts; DV became a collective-action hack: lowering the coordination barrier for serious participation, creating a focal point where scrutiny and norms could actually form & building countervailing power in #OpenGov by making rationale visible and reputationally consequential.
In that sense, DV aimed at robustness, not necessarily popularity: strengthening governance through clearer assumptions, surfaced disagreements & tighter feedback loops.
Cohort 5 will be the last one for now and it is not a verdict on the people (you were the point). It’s a capacity shift as we enter a new phase and priorities reallocate.
To everyone who participated in the program across all cohorts; thank you so much.. we are proud of you and grateful for all your contributions 🤍
Read announcement here:
medium.com/web3foundation/de…
Really enjoyed giving this talk.
It was maybe my most honest attempt to connect the invisible thread:
from movements that organize under authoritarianism
to defiance becoming systems
In places where speech costs everything, you learn to design for silence, friction, and exit.
“Every wall has ears.”
In Syria, that meant you could never speak freely. Karam's story is a reminder of what governance looks like when surveillance, speed, and centralization converge.
Polkadot's OpenGov is built as the opposite architecture: no rulers, no admin keys, no silent capture.
@Zendetta
Welcoming @holstblock as our new Governance Coordinator at @Web3foundation
Eric will be helping support Decentralized Voices, Kusama Vision & a bunch of other governance experiments.
Engagement with W3F is not a prerequisite for proposal success, but following these guidelines is the minimum prerequisite for W3F to consider voting in favour.
Throughout this process, W3F strives to remain an impartial and transparent participant in OpenGov.
1/ The Web3 Foundation’s OpenGov Proposal Voting Guidelines provide clarity on what proposals need to demonstrate, minimum standards for consideration, and guidance to support cost-effectiveness, expertise, accountability, and ecosystem-level impact.
Read more: medium.com/web3foundation/w3…
👌🫶🏽
The @Polkadot Builder Party Hackathon concluded with 2,700+ participants and 230+ submissions.
It’s time to vote for your favorite project!
Voting is open until December 1: polkadot.devpost.com/project…
ALT https://polkadot.devpost.com/project-gallery?page=10
Now it's your vote that matters. Referendum #1791 live in OpenGov. #Polkadot
polkadot.subsquare.io/refere…
OpenGov hands you the playbook, the whistle, and the arena.
Today at @Polkadotsub0 with @alice_und_bob
All it takes is a single honest voice, quietly resonating within the crowd to shift the shape of what’s possible..
On #polkadot, any voice can become a chorus
Teaching istanbul cats some how-to’s of #Polkadot & decentralized governance .. then we nap together in the ruins of fiat society..
“Proof of Purrsonhood” pilot passed..
We are tuning Decentralized Voices ... further:
DV DAOs = 3M DOT each (up from 2M). Guardians unchanged - rationales > raw weight. Happy Friday!
🗳️🎛️ #Polkadot #opengov
The Decentralized Voices Program has been updated.
Learn more in our Medium post: medium.com/web3foundation/de…
