A Global Living Lab: Light DAO's Next International Gathering
Members of Light DAO’s leadership recently participated in Edge Esmeralda and came away feeling it was one of the most impressive, inspiring and transformative business gatherings we had ever experienced — because it was not a conference, retreat or summit.
It was a Society Incubator — an extraordinary integration of worlds that are rarely found in one place.
In a single day, you might:
🌅 Begin the morning with a tea ceremony, breathwork or yoga
🧠 Move into a talk with brilliant researchers, founders and investors on frontier science and emerging technology
💻 Spend a few hours building software, testing experimental health wearables, collaborating in a maker space, or creating in a media lab
🌿 Head into nature, join a wellness session, or get absorbed in a discussion on the latest in AI agents, fintech or longevity
🍽️ Continue the conversations over dinner late into the evening — or end the night with music, ecstatic dance or a calming sound bath
👨👩👧👦 For families, dedicated programs for kids and teens, starting at age 4, offer opportunities to play, learn, create and build within their own community
✨ Alongside all of this are deep conversations about consciousness, philosophy, society and human flourishing
It felt like stepping into a living laboratory for the future — a temporary village designed to explore and experiment with how we might live, work, learn, build and thrive differently.
It offered a glimpse of what the world could look like when innovation, human flourishing and community are developed together.
This is Edge City.
Edge Cities are 3–4 week Living Labs and Society Incubators — international popup villages where frontier technology, science, entrepreneurship, consciousness, culture, art, well-being and community are not separate tracks, but part of one shared environment.
Edge Cities have already taken place in Patagonia, Chiang Mai, Cape Town and Esmeralda, two hours north of San Francisco.
Edge Esmeralda — June 2026
850 residents from 60+ countries
Nearly 300 stayed for the full month
800+ sessions and experiments
Families came with 48 kids
What made it so extraordinary was being surrounded by brilliant, conscious innovators genuinely committed to advancing humanity — with enough time together for real relationships, collaborations and radical ideas to develop.
www.EdgeEsmeralda.com
That experience convinced us that Edge City offers something unusually valuable for the Light DAO community.
So this October, we’re taking our community to the next Edge City.
🌴 The Next Edge City: Goa, India
October 11 – November 1, 2026
We’re taking our community to Edge India in Goa — a three-week Living Lab and Society Incubator with hundreds of participants, approximately 65% coming from outside India.
Light DAO will have our own RESIDENCY within the larger Edge India community, so our members can take part in the full Edge experience while also connecting more intimately with our own community.
💡 A Living Lab Created by Its Community
One of the things that makes Edge Cities especially unique and powerful is its unconference-style format. Much of the experience is created by the participants themselves — through the talks, demos, experiments and working groups they lead around the ideas and projects they care most about.
Light DAO will also host more intimate gatherings within our own Residency, led by our guests.
Once registered, Light DAO Owner Members are welcome to contact us with ideas you might like to lead or contribute to. We can’t guarantee a place in either the Light DAO or Edge programming, but we’d love to hear what you are most excited to share.
That participatory spirit is part of what makes Edge a true Living Lab: the community does not simply attend the experience — it helps create it.
🤝 A Special Light DAO + SingularityNET Residency
We’re delighted to be partnering with SingularityNET for a 3-week Light DAO + SingularityNET Residency at Edge India. This is the first residency of its kind we’ve run with the SingularityNET team.
Everyone racing toward AGI is making the same bet: that a bigger model gets there. SingularityNET is not.
Led by Dr. Ben Goertzel, who helped introduce the term and concept of artificial general intelligence, the team is building Beneficial AGI on Hyperon, a cognitive architecture with more than two decades of research behind it. It holds knowledge, goals and decisions in a form you can inspect, shows its reasoning, and runs under explicit permissions — which is what makes it deployable inside real institutions.
The Residency puts you in the room with the people building it. Talks, working sessions and open build time will give developers, founders, researchers, investors and others serious about AGI, ASI and beneficial technology opportunities to engage directly with the team.
Bring what you are already building. Leave with something concrete: a technical integration, a partnership, an investment conversation, or a prototype you put together on-site at Edge India.
A Glimpse of Who You Will Be Living And Building With
Simeon Schnapper
Managing Partner of JLS Fund, one of the world’s leading venture funds focused on neuroscience and psychedelic medicine. He has testified before Congress and is highly sought after by policymakers, researchers, investors and government leaders worldwide. Simeon travels tirelessly to remote corners of the globe to identify and advance emerging innovations in neuroscience, mental health and human wellbeing.
Manvendra Singh Shekhawat
Founder of Dhun and a leader within India’s MRS Industrial & Hospitality Group and The I Love Foundation. At Dhun, his team transformed 500 acres of barren land outside Jaipur into a lush green village with lakes, wildlife, innovation schools, creative spaces and neighborhoods designed for people to live and build together. Planned for 8,500 residents, it is a bold experiment in how communities of the future might live together.
Aditya Kumar
Tech entrepreneur turned AI and consciousness researcher who sold his first company at 17 and later worked across civic tech, Polkadot and Zcash ecosystems. He stepped away from entrepreneurship to study dharma and founded Holon Research, exploring new approaches to AI alignment, consciousness and human values. He is now helping build a post-AGI research ecosystem in Bhutan’s Gelephu Mindfulness City, a new economic and innovation hub.
Tonya Long
Venture investor and Managing Partner of Daymaker Ventures, with 25 years across enterprise technology, innovation and emerging markets. She has helped bring 400+ products to market and led more than 20 M&A transactions. Tonya now focuses on how AI will reshape the future of work and opportunity, and how leaders and investors can help ensure the AI revolution expands human potential rather than leaving people behind.
Paul Hemming
Founder of Temple and Future Factory in SF and LA, reimagining what physical spaces for work, creativity, entertainment and community can become. Future Factory is being developed as a global network where AI, robotics, art, coworking, wellness, hospitality and community come together in entirely new immersive experiences. His vision pushes entertainment, creativity and human connection beyond today’s familiar models.
Dr. Tamali Sen Gupta
Stanford Law–trained founder and Managing Partner of her own law firm, with more than 35 years in commercial law, governance and international business. She has served on major corporate boards including Sony Pictures India and JW Marriott Delhi, while her firm practices before India’s Supreme Court and High Court of Delhi. She is deeply committed to sustainability, education and social-impact initiatives.
Prageet Harris
Founder of The Stargate Experience, a global consciousness practice centered on energetic and meditative experiences, consciousness exploration and expanded states of awareness. Over 30+ years, Stargate has touched more than 44,000 lives across 70+ countries and 14+ languages, with online programs regularly drawing thousands of participants. Its global community also gathers for live experiences across Europe, Australia, Brazil, Costa Rica, the U.S. and beyond.
SingularityNET Leadership & Team
Several SingularityNET leaders and team members will rotate through the Residency, with business and technical expertise available each week, including participation from their CTO. Residency members will have opportunities for direct conversations, strategic partnership discussions and hands-on support for builders to work with the Beneficial AGI ecosystem.
What Makes Edge Cities a Unique Living Lab + Society Incubator
Hear Edge Cities co-founder Timour Kosters talk about the multidisciplinary, multigenerational and global vision behind Edge Cities — including its unconference format and experiments.
He shares how the experience stretches people’s sense of what is possible, helps them embody that expansion, and activates new collaborations and directions. In 1–3 weeks, many participants accelerate results that might otherwise have taken months or longer.
The Edge experience is designed around focused work, collaboration, wellness, community and time to enjoy Goa.
Your Edge Pass includes the full Edge India experience — programming, coworking, wellness, community gatherings and more.
💰 Pricing
Edge India Pass
Prices increase weekly
2–3 weeks (same price): $1,500–$2,000
1 week: $750–$1,000
Day pass: $150–$200
Indian citizens: 50% discount
🏖️ Our Beachfront 4-Star Resort
Our Light DAO + SingularityNET Residency will be based at Edge India’s central hotel.
Private room + breakfast: $100 per room/night
Lunch + dinner: approximately $30 - 50/day
Your choice — at the resort or anywhere in Goa
Yes — you get your own private room. At $100/night including breakfast, this is an exceptional value for a beachfront 4-star resort.
If you're coming as a couple, it is the same $100/night including breakfast for 2!
Roommates also the same $100/night!
Lunches, dinners and excursions are paid individually, giving you the flexibility to join our residency plans, other Edge activities, or your own plans in Goa.
✨ Joining the Light DAO + SingularityNET Residency
Edge Cities are curated communities with an application and approval process.
Light DAO Owner Members and friends we already know:
Please RSVP here on Luma. You will automatically be approved to Edge India through our Residency.
If you are new to us:
Please RSVP here on Luma and complete the registration questions thoughtfully. Thank you.
Once approved through the Light DAO + SingularityNET Residency, you will not need to complete a separate Edge City application.
Ready to Join?
Choose one of the two ticket options above.
Once approved, we’ll send you:
the direct link to purchase your Edge ticket at the current lowest price
the resort reservation link
Come experience our collaboration between Edge Cities, SingularityNET and Light DAO — where frontier ideas, deep community and real opportunities to build and collaborate come together in one Living Lab.
You may leave with a partnership, a prototype, a new collaborator, or an entirely new direction you had not imagined before joining this unique Society Incubator.