Join us for a Q&A about the program
On March 20th at 9am Pacific (12pm Eastern), Venkat and Tim will be giving an overview of the upcoming summer program, including guidance on applications, important dates, and more. We'll be saving plenty of time for a Q&A, so if you have any questions, be sure to join!
You can also post questions in the Questions Thread in the forum in the meantime.
Immediately after the program overview, Jonathan Blake and Nils Gilman will join for an SoP Guest Talk on protocol thinking at a planetary scale. Prereading and livestream link for their talk, Planetary Subsidiarity: A proposed architecture for governance.
RFCs are trickling in
The call for applications is open until April 12th! As a reminder, there are two grant tracks. The Protocol Improvement Grant (PIG) is $90k for up to 5 two-person teams improving upon an existing protocol. The Protocol PILL Challenge is a $1000 development grant for up to 20 individuals to create protocol-themed work with memetic potential.
Several submissions have been made, each with a public Request for Comment which you can check out on the forum. It's a good idea to post this RFC component of the application early!
The Protocol Entrepreneur's Journey
If you're a visual thinker, these two diagrams are for you. There is a big but illegible opportunity space for nontraditional changemakers:
That core attracts people with a certain combination of traits. In other words, the type of people we're looking for.
Recommended reading for autodidacts
A "Top 20" reading list was posted on the forum yesterday. In addition to last summer's essays, it's a great place to hone your thinking about protocol. Here are some of the suggestions (this isn't the full list - your thumbs don't want to scroll through all of that):
PIG Reference List
What Makes for a Successful Protocol? [Link]
Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization [Link]
If Code is Law, Protocols Are Good Manners That Help Us Get Along [Link]
Men, Machines and Modern Times [Link]
The Checklist Manifesto [Link]
PILL Reference List
XCXD #2347: Dependency (Nebraska Guy) [Link]
Die a Vibe or Live Long Enough to Become a Protocol [Link]
Who Could Write Protocol Fiction for Speculative Infrastructure? [Link]
Bureaucratic Heroism [Link]
The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction [Link]
These links are all good places to look for inspiration to bolster your application. Visit the forum to see the full list!
Also - more research from last summer is live online! Check out Dispatches from Cascadia, Weaving Memory, Exit to Protocol, Addressable Space, or Control and Consciousness of Time.