Honored to share that I've been selected as a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly Third Committee Youth Event at UN Headquarters this Friday.

Had a great time at #UNGA80 attending Digital@UNGA + side events on emerging tech, digital infra & global development.

Some reflections 👇

“Prodigy is, at its essence, adaptable persistent positive obsession. Without persistence, what remains is an enthusiasm of the moment. Without adaptability, what remains may be channeled into destructive fanaticism. Without positive obsession, there is nothing at all.”

If you read my UN OSS report you know that the EU’s Next Generation Internet, who primarily funded open source development, had funding cut

DWeb is hosting a vital conversation on funding & sustaining open source. Highly recommend tuning in 👇

Internet resilience is sovereignty.

Happy to share my op-ed based on the UN Open Source Conference 2025.

Why OSS funding, digital identity, and infrastructure equity are key to global futures:

The solution requires reframing how we think about #opensource infrastructure. Rather than treating it as a technical curiosity, policymakers must recognize it as foundational to economic resilience, GDP growth, & democratic governance, writes Feven Mekonenn pulse.internetsociety.org/blog/insight...

there is something very powerful in an entity or object that has no embedded politics or human configuration because then you’re forced to look beyond yourself

you have the opportunity to see beyond human greed, human optimism, human consumption

Recent tariff data shows (Goldman Sachs):
→ Foreign exporters absorbed 14% of U.S. tariffs
→ U.S. companies absorbed 64%
→ U.S. consumers absorbed 22%

"Open source supports critical infrastructure but lacks visibility, stable funding, and equitable participation...

Yet there is a viable path forward. It requires reframing open source development in terms that resonate with policymakers and the public"

hi! if you regularly write on substack i would love to follow you and hear your suggestions on others to follow as well

cc @kneelingbus.bsky.social @chenoehart.bsky.social

UN Open Source Conference 2025 Insights


I wrote a report reflecting on how open source shapes digital sovereignty, public infrastructure, and global equity. Here’s a quick preview ↴

OpenAI, Anthropic, and Scale AI are already lobbying in Washington to shape policies that favor their closed source AI models. OpenAI alone spent nearly $2 million on government lobbying in the past year....

At the UN Open Source Conference, I joined a discussion on how to help beginners start contributing to open source.

Midway through, I asked "Will AI lower barriers to OSS contributions, and how are projects handling these influxes?"

The responses were unexpectedly blunt:

Last week, I attended the United Nations Open Source Week at the UN Headquarters in NYC

a global gathering at the intersection of diplomacy, technology, and public good ↴

🚨 The Senate is currently voting on the “Big Beautiful Bill” right now, if you’re curious how this bill will impact:
→ clean energy projects
→ crypto
→ healthcare access
→ tax policy
→ border security
→ federal public land use

one must imagine Sisyphus happy

i’m back on twitter hmu: twitter.com/notfeven

Meet the Summer of Protocols researchers
https://paragraph.xyz/@protocolized/introducing-the-summer-of-protocols-cohort