Zuzalu.city Project Description

At Zuzalu, we believe in the power of open frontiers and decentralization to shape a future where every voice is heard, and every community thrives. Our journey continues with Zuzalu.city, providing an online space to build tools for Zuzalu software and empower communities.

As we embark on this new journey, our primary goal is to cultivate a thriving community space that fosters collective collaboration. Zuzalu.city is more than a solution; it’s a catalyst for diverse initiatives and spin-off communities within and around Zuzalu.

To achieve this, we are building community-driven and open-source tools that empower everyone in our community. Coordinate builders in the community to build towards application experiences and tools both for/and independent of Zuzalu.city.

Vision & Principles

Zuzalu.city is a decentralised open-source operating system that connects users to interoperable Ethereum ecosystem applications for innovating their communities.

Vision: For Every Innovative Community.

Zuzalu.city is to create a world where every community can innovate their civilisation with the tools they need.

A Community OS (C-OS)

A Community Operating System (OS) is the foundational social technology that manages collective resources and provides essential services for community members to coordinate efforts through software. Unlike a traditional OS, a Community OS such as Zuzalu.city is the intermediary between the user, software, and community.

Community OS is made possible by the emergence of collectively-owned, auditable applications based on trustless infrastructure of Ethereum blockchain.

1. User Interface: Zuzalu.city is first and foremost a user interface that allows users to interact with various decentralised applications. Such applications are run and maintained independently by their own contributors.
2. Data Storage Management: A traditional OS manages files and directories on your storage devices (such as hard drives or SSDs) and provides apps with access to read, write, and organize files. The community OS allows users to switch between decentralised and traditional storage, control their profile and application data, and selectively share data while interacting with community apps, via zero-knowledge cryptography.
3. Community apps store and retrieve data according to individual community configurations.
4. Security and Permissions: The Community OS manages user permissions and security settings. Apps installed by communities rely on the Community OS to provide access control (such as requiring a password or fingerprint) to authorised users and for apps to interact with each other.
5. Compatibility: Decentralised applications follow fundamental architecture required by the decentralised networks they operate in (i.e. Ethereum). Applications are designed to be compatible and interoperable when the GUIs are provided and the OS ensures that the software functions correctly and interacts well.
6. Updates and Maintenance: The community OS must provide update mechanisms for applications, ensuring that software can be patched or upgraded smoothly.

Mission: What Should've Been, Is.

Zuzalu.city was born in the first of its kind techno-optimistic pop-up community of Zuzalu, and commits to becoming the most user-friendly operating system to interact with the tools and applications built by Ethereum’s decentralisation communities.

We are building an easy-to-use interface that serves as a collective operating system, connecting users to decentralised, open-source and autonomous applications. In the movement of d/acc, Zuzalu Software empowers communities for online and offline coordination, contribution and collaboration with customizable privacy and most importantly, user-owned data.

Approaches

We approach this social, technological and philosophical challenge by:

1. focusing on user experience while not compromising cypherpunk principles
2. being neutral & open to integrate and promote all vision-aligned applications, connecting them to communities with relevant needs
3. being hands-on at research and developing native tools needed to fill in the gaps
4. supporting teams that are on the way to being aligned tooling
5. building tools that out-live individual developers and teams

Objective & Progress Update:

Building Together:

Zuzalu.city stands as a vibrant hub where collaboration thrives. Over 100 builders from various projects have joined forces, bringing their unique perspectives and skills to contribute to the Zuzalu ecosystem.

The primary focus is to underscore interoperability between Zuzalu.city and various tools, ensuring seamless integration. A robust coordination process will be established, empowering community members to actively contribute and develop missing modules and components. This diverse group of contributors embodies the collaborative spirit that fuels our mission.

Invitations will be extended to Matrix, enhancing community engagement with a focus on fostering meaningful and high-quality interactions.

Current List of Contributors

Zuzalu Software Contributors

Progress Update:

Zuzalu City Beta launched on October 2024!

Communities now create spaces and run events on ZuCity with:

-Customizable credentials and tickets using smart contracts,

-NFT & Zupass check-in

-Ceramic for data flexibility.

Feature updates:

1. Calendar App v1 is here for scheduling single-day events, with an announcement in review.
2. dApp Explorer v0.1 is live

• Tools for Communities, Events & More
• List your dApp and get discovered by community
• [In progress]-Integrating iframes into communities and events to seamlessly access EVM-compatible dApps.
• [In progress]-Ceramic-based SDK implementation in development for seamless [dApp listing],no need to merge codes

Infrastructure updates:

• Data security Enhancement:
• To strength [data ownership].
• [New strategies] to boost reliability and security.
• Daily node snapshots for continuous monitoring 
• Weekly backup schedule implementation 
• Secondary node backup configuration in progress 
• Node currently undergoing system upgrade - ETA 3 days for normal operation

Community updates:

1. No Cap, All dApps Hackathon @ETHDenver
2. Forming Zubuilder Guild

Updates log:

• With the combined efforts of contributors, Zuzalu.city has been open to use at ZuConnect in Istanbul so that the attendees can view and apply the events around freely with Zuzalu Passports.
• Starting January 30th, Zuzalu.city has been open for registrations from any Zuvillage events looking to join the vibrant community.
• Ensure modularity and composability for other Zu-communities to build upon or with us. With discussions of of interoperable infrastructure that upholds the design principles and collaborative framework, we are preparing to publish infrastructure proposal and launch into implementation of basic community experience features.
• Research and collaboration has been actively coordinated among builders in the server across teams that focuses on decentralize and upgrading projects to be included in the zuzalu community spaces for communities to use for their own coordination. Since December, a collaborative hack to bring https://beta.carbonvote.com/ into usage by communiteis has been coordinated whereas many other efforts started to embark on identity, reputation, treasuray, governance and etc. (see: https://zuzalu.craft.me/ZIzStdH9gNWmWI)
• The project while discussing with requirements of future Zu-villages in various location has been advising and supporting Zu-villages both in operation preparation and software.

Live DApp: https://www.zuzalu.city/

Take a peek at the prototype: https://zucity-proto.framer.website/

Next Steps:

We will continue building open-source tools for everyone to use. Coordinate builders in the community to build towards application experiences and tools both for and independent of the app. We also need to build a basis for an engineering environment to create a better process for a whole community of developers to contribute/co-build with us.

Some planned native features for an app experience:

• A social system with feeds, posts, etc.
• Identity Layer
• A “catch-all” DID. Use any pass or wallet to auth/verify creds. DID would be platform-specific.
• Improve event modules and implement additions i.e. side-events, ticketing, improve user experience.
• Implement Community Spaces that can be customized with different native modules like events, messaging, and posts.
• Coordinate builders to hack features needed and integrate with exsiting projects to be in the Zuzalu Tech Stack.

Build with us!

We eagerly await enthusiastic members to join forces with existing community builders, and contribute and take on challenges together. Here are at least three ways to get involved:

1. Co-build Shape the OS and build tools.
2. Module/Plug-in/Extension Integrate tools into the toolkit.
3. Requirements Providers (Feature R&D) Test Zuzalu infra with specific community experiences.

Join Matrix - R&D, coop building portal