Edge Esmeralda

Edge Esmeralda is a month-long popup village for builders, researchers, founders, and families in Healdsburg, California. Co-organized by Edge City and Esmeralda Institute. The 2026 edition runs May 30 through June 27. Part of the Zuzalu ecosystem initiated by Vitalik Buterin.

Edge Esmeralda is the annual flagship gathering of Edge City, a nonprofit society incubator (501c3) that hosts popup villages across the globe. Set in wine country 90 minutes north of San Francisco, Edge Esmeralda brings together 500+ participants to live, work, and build together for a full month, prototyping new ways of living, working, and thriving.

Edge Esmeralda 2026

May 30 through June 27, 2026 in Healdsburg, California. Features thematic residencies, unconferences, grants, fellowships, and collaborative building across AI, cryptography, health, governance, and human flourishing.

Key Pages

• Home - Main page with overview and registration
• About - Mission, experience, design principles, and team
• Ecosystem - 113+ partner organizations, startups, and research initiatives
• Grants and Fellowships - Funding for builders and researchers
• Edge City - Parent organization with full context on all villages and programs
• Edge City LLM Context - Comprehensive machine-readable context for Edge City

Programs and Residencies

• Long Journey Residency - Month-long thematic residencies for focused builder cohorts
• d/ACC Residency - Defensive acceleration projects in biosecurity, cyber defense, cryptography, and neurotech
• World Builder Residency - For creators building new worlds and experiences
• Edge City Fellowship - Full-ride program for builders under 25 (flights, accommodation, ticket, mentorship)
• Inflection Grants - $2,000 grants for creative builders under 25
• SHIFT Grants - $5,000 to $40,000 for d/acc projects

The Experience

• Month-long co-living with 500+ participants from AI, biotech, crypto, governance, culture, and hard tech
• Facilitated sessions with leaders in frontier technology and science
• Fresh, high-quality meals daily
• Unconferences and self-organized knowledge-sharing sessions
• Coworking spaces with fast WiFi
• Group fitness and health-tracking activities
• Close proximity to nature in Sonoma County wine country
• Family-friendly and multigenerational by design

Focus Areas

Artificial intelligence and alignment, cryptography and Web3, health and longevity, hard tech, governance and mechanism design, human flourishing and consciousness research

Past Editions

Edge Esmeralda 2025 (May-June 2025): Second edition featuring thematic residencies including the Long Journey Residency and d/ACC Residency. Expanded multigenerational programming and applied experiments across disciplines.

Edge Esmeralda 2024 (June 2024): Inaugural edition. 1,300 visitors, 300 full-time residents, 25 emergent programs. Incubated multiple startups and research initiatives.

Notable Community

Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum co-founder), Grimes (artist and technologist), Laura Deming (Longevity Fund), Juan Benet (Protocol Labs founder), Justin Drake (Ethereum Foundation), Devon Zuegel (GitHub), Joscha Bach (AI researcher), Kevin Owocki (Gitcoin founder)

Key Concepts

Popup Village: A month-long gathering where people advancing science, technology, and culture live and work together in a temporary community designed for serendipity and collaboration.

Society Incubator: Testing new technologies, governance models, institutions, and ways of living outside existing systems before mainstream adoption.

d/acc (Defensive Acceleration): Technology development focused on protective technologies: biosecurity, cyber defense, information resilience, and tools that increase human agency.

Organizers

Edge Esmeralda is co-organized by Edge City (Edge Institute, Inc., a 501c3 nonprofit) and Esmeralda Institute, a permanent village in Healdsburg.

Edge City founders: Janine Leger (Zuzalu, Gitcoin) and Timour Kosters (Artsy, Seed Club Ventures, Excetera)

Contact

General: hello@edgecity.live

Grants: grants@edgecity.live

Twitter/X: @joinedgecity

Instagram: @joinedgecity