GARY SHENG

Building Civics Unplugged was a dream.

Beyond the joy of supporting so many young civic innovators explore their passions and skills, I am grateful for how much time it gave me to explore the roots of civilizational decline and fragility.

Given the growing number of existential risks facing Americans and all of humanity, my research has showed me that there may be nothing more important to humanity's long-term flourishing than investing in and building what I call "foundational technologies" that enable hyperlocal resilience, self-sustainability, dynamism, and ecological regeneration.

• How do we build villages and cities of the future that are not only not extractive, they leave the environment around them better off?
   
• How do we fund people and projects that generate and regenerate what matters?
   
• How can communities prepare for the worst, and simultaneously plant seeds for a new Golden Age for the U.S. (and all of humanity)?

I am dedicating this newest chapter of my life to exploring questions like these, advising high-impact projects, and creating new impactful projects of my own.

If you'd like to compare notes and explore collaborating on topics related to foundational tech, hyperlocalism, regeneration, American dynamism, and more, feel free to DM me on LinkedIn or Twitter.

New York, NY

In May 2019, I broke Google's "Golden Handcuffs" because it became clear to me that if far more isn’t done to train a new generation of leaders committed to civic innovation, humanity will sink under the weight of its greatest challenges—including the climate crisis, skyrocketing inequality, and rising geopolitical tensions.

This is where Civics Unplugged came in. I co-founded CU to empower Gen Z civic innovators to direct their passions, creativity, and idealism toward building a better future.

I spent three years doing anything and everything to get CU off the ground—organizational design, branding and marketing, community building, mentoring, curriculum design and delivery, and fundraising support.

It was an incredibly rewarding experience. We gained partners and supporters like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Andrew Yang, Coinbase, Ethereum Foundation, and the Smithsonian, and trained close to 2,000 students across 70+ countries. And importantly, we achieved financial and operational sustainability.

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• I was named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 2021 List for my work on Civics Unplugged. You can see my profile here.
• Watch my TEDx about Civics Unplugged here.
• To learn more about why I left Google to co-found Civics Unplugged, watch this conversation I participated in with University of Toronto professor Jonathan Vervaeke in October 2020.
• In January 2022, Civics Unplugged entered the world of web3 by launching the Dream DAO, which builds the web3 x social impact ecosystem and empowers Gen Zers to learn web3 and leverage its power to change the world. Learn more here. The reception from the web3 community blew our expectations out of the water.

New York, NY

Landing a job at Google was a dream come true. I more or less worked all of college to get to that point.

While I still suffer from imposter syndrome to this day, I quickly convinced others I deserved to be there and was given a lot of responsibility at a young age.

The team I had the privilege of helping lead was tasked with improving the user experience for Google Cloud users. We helped carry out the top-to-bottom redesign and implementation of Cloud Datastore's UI, and then led the front-end team of Google's Cloud SQL product. March 2017, we launched our PostgreSQL offering – which increased Cloud SQL's total addressable market by ~40%. April 2019, we launched our initial SQL Server offering - which is poised to increase Cloud SQL's total addressable market by ~$6B.

I wouldn’t trade my tenure at Google for anything. I was able to ship products that bettered the lives of millions of people around the world. But ultimately, I knew I couldn’t stay there long-term. Civics Unplugged was calling.

Los Angeles & New York

Obsessed with finding music that brings people joy, my friend Nik and I scoured the internet every day, collecting tracks from bedroom electronic music producers who we considered to be pioneers of a rare form of "musical medicine."

This "medicine" metaphor was very real to us, especially for me. Feel-good electronic music got me through depressive episodes in college. But as much as the music improved our moods, Nik and I quickly saw that we weren't the only beneficiaries of the emerging genre. As we shared the songs with our friends, we saw the music provided a similarly therapeutic effect for them.

Seeing the potential of this genre to make people's lives better, we set off on a mission to help as many people in the world as possible get a taste of what we had enjoyed for years. Out of this mission came Dancing Pineapple, which was the music blog and events company that Nik and I used to fill the huge "feel-good electronic music"-shaped hole in the world.

Over the four years that we worked together on Dancing Pineapple, we were able to promote, coach, and launch dozens of incredible artists from four continents. In one two-year stretch, we produced 24 concerts across NYC and LA. Some of these artists have since played at Coachella, EDC Vegas, and other music festivals. It blows me away just thinking about it.

Durham, NC

Duke presented unprecedented scale and diversity of opportunity. My four years of phenomenal professors across the disciplines pushed me to expand, challenge, and adjust my worldview.

My experience dancing with DefMo showed me the power of empathetic leadership and expanded my artistic comfort zone. My tenure throwing major, campus-wide events validated that quality stems from attention to detail. My junior fall semester abroad at London's UCL humbled me to explore my place in the world. My engagement in Duke's tech & innovation initiatives exercised my creative muscle, sparked my obsession with design, and strengthened my tolerance to adversity. My internships at Google, Flipboard, and Pocket helped me discover my love for building products that make people's lives better.

Duke showed me what I love to do, gifted me with a love for learning, and surrounded me with a wealth of inspiring peers.