Work is broken.— and the institutions organizing it were built for a different century.
A research arm for the social contracts that quietly hold both work and technology together.
Rizom Foundation publishes essays, runs city-by-city gatherings, and stewards the open AI infrastructure the community runs on.
The smartest thing in any room is rarely a person. It's the pattern by which the people in the room are connected.
Featured essays from the ongoing series
A working bibliography. New entries land roughly monthly.
The future of work is play
When machines handle the busywork, what remains is the deeply human. A sketch of what work could look like once we stop pretending the industrial frame still fits.
Social contracts, not constitutions
Why the documents we venerate aren't what's actually holding institutions together — and what that means for anyone trying to build new ones from inside the old ones.
Coordination is the unit of intelligence
The smartest thing in any room is rarely a person — it's the pattern by which the people in the room are connected. Implications for AI, for teams, and for the institutions that claim to organize both.
Small, curated gatherings — city by city.
Twenty to forty people. Jan Hein as intellectual anchor. Local organizers picking the room and the rhythm.
Amsterdam
The original chapter. Quarterly gatherings on social contracts, AI, and the institutions that organize knowledge work.
Rotterdam
A working chapter focused on industry, ports, and the practical frictions of building new institutions inside old ones.
Berlin
The newest chapter. Civic tech, digital rights, and the public-infrastructure question — where the foundation's research meets European policy.
Two ways the work gets funded.
€1,000 – €10,000
A gift in this range funds a meaningful slice of the research and event series. Contributors are acknowledged in the essays, invited to closer-circle gatherings, and get early access to new writing and infrastructure.
Get in touch →Grants & partnerships
The foundation's work qualifies as public infrastructure under most civic and digital-rights funding frameworks. We're actively in conversation with grantmakers, NGOs, and institutional co-funders. Reach Jan Hein directly.
Email Jan Hein →A small group, anchored by writing and stewarded by community.
Philosopher, ecosystem architect, and public intellectual. Founder of Rizom and lead author of the research. Writes about institutions, AI, and the social contracts that quietly hold both together.
Holds the Discord together, runs the reading groups, and quietly does the coordination work that keeps a distributed community from becoming a mailing list.
Owns the gatherings end-to-end. Picks the rooms, sets the rhythm, makes sure the conversations that matter actually happen.
Researchers, organizers, and contributors across Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Berlin, and beyond. The list is public — and growing.
The research lands one essay at a time. The events land one city at a time. Both go better with company.
Follow the research.
Stay close to the essays, the gatherings, and the public infrastructure underneath them.