- **We provide the Celo builder ecosystem with transformative opportunities to work together in the real world**, connecting the Celo builder ecosystem to the wider EVM-based public goods world, and more specifically to the Superchain community. This enables Celo builders to access mentors, public goods funding, and other builders from the wider EVM community.

- **Though we are builders of internet technology, there is no substitute for the bonds forged through real-world connections.** Based on preliminary results from our first public goods builders residency, we believe that we have a strong collaborative peer production model for open-source public goods, through fostering peer collaboration. This is amplified by curating a community of particularly collaborative and mutually supportive builders and by curating a highly conducive environment for collaboration to occur, from the venue selection to the available activities to the dietary selection, all optimized for happy, healthy, harmonious builders.

- **Our residencies and pilots integrate grassroots NGOs and social entrepreneurs addressing real-world problems** in the specific context of the region that they take place in. By exposing builders to these real-world problems and facilitating conversations between builders, activists, social entrepreneurs, and local NGOs, we are exposing builders to potential real-world applications of web3 and giving those same builders direct opportunities to build relationships with organizations solving real-world problems at the last mile—exactly the territory where the Celo blockchain is purpose-built to excel.

- **In Chiang Mai this year, we will run a pilot alongside our builder residency.** The pilot specifically addresses the plight of Burmese refugees fleeing war across the border and integrates various grassroots NGOs that work directly with Burmese refugees, who are often stateless persons (i.e., are not citizens of their native nation-state and therefore do not hold a passport) and thus unable to attain basic access to financial services through conventional channels. Celo builders will have the opportunity to interface directly with these grassroots NGOs, whom we’ve been able to bring in through our partners, who have trusted and longstanding relationships with these local organizations.

- [Video - recap from 2023 Berlin residency](https://youtu.be/NXrqTm9UBZI)
- [Video - What is a Funding the Commons Residency](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ToX5EbFLE8&t=9s)

- **Other key facts about the 2023 Berlin Residency:**
    - 40 builders participated
    - 15 sponsors/mentors
    - We can proudly say that one of the projects incubated during the residency and given its first grant by Funding the Commons post-residency has allowed our community member to receive the ETH Next Billion Fellow Award
