I am sitting at the airport in Zanzibar, waiting for my flight home - something I have not really anticipated a few months ago.
First of all, let me thank Comms team for asking me to come and Logos for sponsoring. This was my first pop-up village experience and I belive it could not have been better than this.
TL;DR - things I participated in:
- Beach clean up
- Workshop/Talk/Demo on “Defending public goods” - what is “public good”, how does Internet Archive work, history of web3 (3 pillars and all), what is Codex and how it works and how it fits in defending Internet Archive
- Student Weekend
- Governance and DAOs intro
- You have nothing to hide! - what does real decentralization mean and why does it matter (talk)
- Helping students explore projects to build
- Logos Circle
- Help identify local issue and a potential solution (see Ongoing IT training via dedicated computer room Zanzibar school - #2 by vpavlin)
- Recorded podcast with Web3 Clubs
- Participate in Zanzalu Vision discussion
- Many exciting random discussions:)
I visited Zanzibar roughly 7 years ago as a tourist and felt like I will eventually come back. I did not expect it would be a work related visit - but to be fair, it only made it better:).
Fumba Town, where Zanzalu is organized, is a growing new modern “settlement”. Like the rest of Zanzibar it is very calm and slow paced place. I went to my first breakfast there with a goal to observe and listen, but if you know me, you can guess that is basically impossible. After a brief intros with a few participants an important question was asked: “What do you do and what is actually Logos?”. I’ve been forcefully dragged away after 30 minutes by the rest of the team to attend a meeting 
.
The townhall in the evening allowed me to learn more about the people and Zanzalu itself - diverse group from various parts of the world participating in this locally focused event - great!.
I very much enjoyed giving the talk/workshop about public goods and Codex - the highlight was when part of the group for the student weekend arrived at the end and asked “Can you sum it up with a few sentences?” - of course, I can - and I probably did a decent job, because they then asked a series of a really good questions:).
Soon we dove fully into the student weekend - organizers explained the process and intro talks began. I get a bit triggered when an intro talk to web3 overfocuses on “transparency of blockchains” as being a feature, not a bug, so I decided to give my own intro talk.
Seeing the students change from silent observers to active participants and eventually amazing presenters was very exciting and I cannot wait to follow the progress on their projects (I am sure the project plans will be shared soon).
One of the great benefits of how Zanzalu works and is organized (massive kudos to Eva and Mark) is the connection to local community. This resulted in a random conversation about a local community school at the breakfast, eventually evolving in the first winnable issue of the local Logos Circle. We’ve even visited the school and talked and played with the kids - two main highlights were definitely @drgoemon’s big bag of candies and my shoes - a bunch of kids pointing fingers and shouting “technologia” - I definitely did not see this coming:D
On my last day we explored the the Bwawani Fusion project in Stone Town and recorded very exciting podcast with Ochi, Victor and Rita from Web3 Clubs on the topic of privacy, decentralization, evolving narative of web3 and developer/builder communities.
The last item on the long list of contribution opportunities was “Zanzalu Vision” meeting. It was a long discussion with many diverse opinions and ideas, but I feel like we have a good direction for Zanzalu for immediate future with outline of next steps:).
I am honoured I could be part of Zanzalu 2025 and I am very proud of all we could contribute to there. I am also humbled because it reminded me how privileged I am in my life.
Big thanks also has to go the all the organizers - Eva, Mark, Ochi, Michelle and the Comms team - you’ve produced and amazing event and introduction to pop-up villages for me. And you made me fall in love with Zanzibar even more 