Governmentality is a concept first developed by Michel Foucault. He often defines governmentality as the “art of government” in a wide sense, i.e. with an idea of “government” that is not limited to state politics alone, which includes a wide range of control techniques, from one’s control of the self to the “bio-political” control of populations. The notion is linked to other concepts such as bio-politics and power-knowledge.

The concept of “governmentality” develops a new understanding of power. Foucault encourages us to think of power not only in terms of hierarchical, top-down power of the state. He widens our understanding of power to also include the forms of social control in disciplinary institutions (schools, hospitals, psychiatric institutions, etc.), as well as the forms of knowledge. – Wikipedia

In OSG, we follow Foucault’s view of empowering the public with knowledge to enable them to govern themselves. We believe that the passivity of the local communities in their participation for their own sociopolitical issues has a lot to do with the lack of power-knowledge.

The wisdom of the crowd is a concept that highlights the collective intelligence of a diverse group of individuals. It suggests that, when a large and diverse group of people independently provide their opinions, insights, and judgments on a particular issue, their combined wisdom can often lead to more accurate and reliable decisions than those made by a single expert or a small group of decision-makers.

When individuals with varying perspectives, expertise, and knowledge contribute their opinions independently, the aggregate of their insights tends to cancel out individual biases and errors, resulting in a more informed and well-rounded decision. This collective intelligence is especially valuable when addressing complex, multifaceted issues where no single person or small group possesses all the answers.

Wisdom of the crowd is one of the main pillars of study within Open Source Governance. The project tries to understand its dynamics and what motivates a crowd in making decisions collectively.

(also known as pure democracy) is a form of democracy in which people decide (e.g. vote on, form consensus on) policy initiatives directly. This differs from the majority of modern Western-style democracies, which are representative democracies.
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Generally, open source refers to a computer program in which the source code is available to the general public for use and/or modification from its original design. Open-source code is meant to be a collaborative effort, where programmers improve upon the source code and share the changes within the community. – Wikipedia

A cryptocurrency is a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange wherein individual coin ownership records are stored in a ledger existing in a form of computerized database using strong cryptography to secure transaction records, to control the creation of additional coins, and to verify the transfer of coin ownership. It typically does not exist in physical form (like paper money) and is typically not issued by a central authority. Cryptocurrencies typically use decentralized control as opposed to centralized digital currency and central banking systems. When a cryptocurrency is minted or created prior to issuance or issued by a single issuer, it is generally considered centralized. When implemented with decentralized control, each cryptocurrency works through distributed ledger technology, typically a blockchain, that serves as a public financial transaction database. – Wikipedia

A blockchain, originally block chain,is a growing list of records, called blocks, that are linked using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data (generally represented as a Merkle tree).

By design, a blockchain is resistant to modification of its data. This is because once recorded, the data in any given block cannot be altered retroactively without alteration of all subsequent blocks. For use as a distributed ledger, a blockchain is typically managed by a peer-to-peer network collectively adhering to a protocol for inter-node communication and validating new blocks. Although blockchain records are not unalterable, blockchains may be considered secure by design and exemplify a distributed computing system with high Byzantine fault tolerance. The blockchain has been described as “an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way”.