GARY SHENG

I After years of scaling social media accounts, running successful campaigns, and diving into various movements from activism to web3, it became crystal clear to me that the most powerful brands are the ones that ignite the fire within people—turning mere followers into advocates who take action. The art of brand building is not just about logos, aesthetics, or catchy taglines. It's about creating a powerful narrative that resonates deeply with people's identities and values. That's why I founded Mr. FireBrands: to help genius innovators craft personal brands that not just "scale," but superscale their influence. In essence, we build brands that become a lifestyle for your audience, making you irreplaceably 1 of 1 in the eyes of people who matter to you.

At Mr. FireBrands, we do more than just social media management or content strategy. We begin with an in-depth understanding of your life goals and work closely with you to craft a "training" strategy tailored to achieve those objectives. With our 10-week personalized brand training program, you'll witness meaningful changes not just in numbers, but in how you're perceived and received by your target audience. I'm highly selective about the clients I work with because I am committed to making each project a remarkable success.

My mission is to work with the change-makers, the future leaders, and visionaries who are ready to set the world ablaze with their unique brands. That's what Mr. FireBrands is all about: taking you from being merely known to being profoundly influential.

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 X.

One of the ways I am supporting the development of foundational tech is by contributing to Gitcoin.

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.
• I was featured in a PBS "Roadtrip Nation" documentary on Changemakers (published in March 2023).
• 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.