Santiago is the founder of Democracy Earth, an open source platform for governance and community participation. A former video game developer turned activist-slash-founding member of Argentina's political party Partido de la Red, Santi takes us on a walk through NYC's central park to talk about the future of democracy. We explore the intersection between democracy and the internet to understand how technology can help make governance better - in the democratic systems of our future, as well as in any other community we’re building. And because we like to keep our episodes unpredictable, this one features the lovely–yet sometimes distracting–chirping of birds on a spring day in New York City’s Central Park. Ladies and gents, here is episode 19 of the Community Podcast with Santiago Siri.

Solana Larsen is a journalist, editor and activist currently leading the Internet Health Report: Mozilla’s open source initiative to document and explain the state of the Internet in various areas of global interest. We talked to Solana on the occasion of the Internet Health Report’s third release. Her view on the health of the Internet swings from guarded optimism to hopeful pessimism in a fascinating way. Adding to that, her journalistic background and her contribution to initiatives like Global Voices and openDemocracy give Solana a unique perspective on topics like digital rights, digital literacy and Internet governance.

Jyri Engeström is a Finland-born, California-raised entrepreneur who has built online social networks since the dawn of the web 2.0 era. With Yes VC, the early-stage venture fund he started together with his partner Caterina Fake, Jyri now invests in the next generation of the web’s social infrastructure. In our call with Jyri, we talk about him growing up in the Silicon Valley of the 90s, the roots of the social web, communities as essential building blocks of society, the role of venture capital in helping social movements grow, future trends and how the internet, at its best, helps people help other people.

Harper Reed is an American technologist, known for being the CTO behind Obama's 2012 re-election campaign, for his involvement in pioneering online crowdsourcing company Threadless, his hairstyle, and many other weird and wonderful projects he gets involved in. Severin met Harper at MIT’s media lab in Berlin, in August last year. Being a fan of Harper’s work for many years, he took the opportunity to ask him about what Harper calls his life waves: periods in his career when he quit everything and said yes to any new opportunity that came his way. Like this interview. Or building one of the first crowdsourcing communities on the internet. Using social technology to get a president elected. Or predicting the future for a living. All this, and more, including sirens and pan flute recitals, in episode #16 of The Community Podcast.

Claire L. Evans is a LA-based writer, musician and the author of Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet. She’s also one of the most eloquent, articulate and witty people we’ve met to reflect on the state of the Internet today. In our talk, we covered how Claire met the women who built the internet, how they translated traditional communication formats to the digital world, and what we can learn from early virtual communities about power dynamics, politics and gender bias today.

Khalid Albaih is a political cartoonist and social media activist. Using the Internet as a way of publishing uncensored drawings since 2006, Khalid has been one of the leading visual artists of the Arab Spring and has witnessed first hand how social media evolved - from a tool to fight the establishment to eventually becoming the establishment itself. In our conversation, we talk about how social media changed since Khalid got started, how politics got involved and the chances for the Internet to remain a space to raise our voices. Where to find Khalid: https://www.facebook.com/pg/KhalidAlbaih http://twitter.com/khalidalbaih https://www.instagram.com/khalidalbaih

Sarah Clark is the Chief Marketing Officer of Rapha, the British cycling brand known and loved for celebrating cycling as a sport and culture. Rapha is a prime example of how a brand can build an authentic community around a clear purpose: it runs its own cycling club with thousands of members, operates 22 clubhouses around the world, organizes weekly rides that anyone can join, produces movies, has a beautiful print magazine and a ton of other projects that help people discover their passion for cycling. I met Sarah at Rapha's London headquarters to find out how it all came about: how Rapha got started, how her vision of the brand evolved and Sarah's advice for people who want to start their own mission-driven brand. Links: http://www.rapha.cc http://www.rapha.cc/rcc

Claire is the founder of Ladies Get Paid, an organization and global community that helps women rise up at work. Since its launch in 2016, Ladies Get Paid has grown to 30,000 members in more than 60 countries. We talk about how it all got started: how Ladies Get Paid grew from a meetup in a tiny New York apartment to a global movement, how Claire attached a business model to it, her advice for community founders and her vision for growing Ladies Get Paid in the future. Links: http://www.ladiesgetpaid.com http://www.claireslovesyou.com

Charles Adler is a designer, entrepreneur and technologist most well known for being the co-founder and former Head of Design of Kickstarter; the crowdfunding platform that forever changed how creativity gets funded. Charles then founded Lost Arts, a 25,000 sqf workspace in Chicago, and travels the world to speak about social entrepreneurship, technology and creativity. We talk about his experience in building Kickstarter, how he designs community at Lost Arts, the difference in building a global online platform vs a physical workspace, corporate responsibility and social change through technology. Links: http://www.twitter.com/cadler http://www.lostarts.co

Nelly Ben Hayoun is a designer of experiences. Sometimes called the "Willy Wonka of Design and Science" or “Part designer, part performance artist, part space traveller”, Nelly and her team are known for transcending boundaries. They create orchestras together with NASA space scientists, put dark energy in your kitchen sink or create places such as The University of the Underground, Nelly’s latest venture that teaches critical thinking, unconventional research and social dreaming to post-graduate students. At her studio in London, Nelly told me more about how it all came about and what it means to design an experience.