Hi @Richard, @noemi, and POPREBEL team,
hi everybody else!
I recently re-discovered Edgeryders after a conversation with @nadia, and this looks like a great opportunity to dive deeper into this community!
What a fascinating project! I wonder who isn’t talking about populism these days with all that’s happening both on a larger political scale, as well as the widening social inequality - I suppose you’d call this “fatigue”, and it’s quite interesting to read about the delay of this effect and yet alarming in its instrumentalization.
The project’s approach of improving sensemaking tools is powerful, and the threat of replication in other parts of Europe and the world is palpable, and I’d be happy if my background can be useful to contribute to this project’s success!
As a POC, I’ve had a lot of personal touchpoints with right-wing populism - I was a 3-month old orphan in South Korea when I was adopted by a German mother and US father. I spent most of my youth in Germany, and when I returned after college, I arrived in a country that was paying lots of attention to a 'callous intellectual’ who published an inflammatory xenophobic book in 2010. Since then I’ve spent lots of energy trying to bring awareness to this cultural “Rechtsruck”, which mostly fell on deaf ears (even among many climate activists). Lately however, there seems to be more openness to this topic, and it has become more of an issue among my networks (even climate justice is now increasingly becoming part of the conversation). I would be very interested in widening my understanding of the supply-side on the four dimensions you plan to study, and the effectiveness of the responses.
Related to the issues on which participants are asked to share stories, these are areas I’m interested in and I think I can contribute to a good exchange and atmosphere. I think well-being should be at the center of our (economic) systems, surely rather than growth of GDP. As a father, I’ve gained new perspectives on the issues of health, care, spirituality, work, and prosperity, which I think increases my empathy when engaging with people from all walks of life.
Professionally, on top of co-creating social entrepreneurship programs (see here), I’ve been part of building the MakeSense community in Berlin since 2011, and served on the global board laying the foundation for its community-led governance. In 2013, I did a TEDx talk on building community through shared activity/creativity - which I think is very much a part of what Emily Thomey was describing. I also full well know the challenging feeling of building/engaging a community… There have been more than a few community meetings where I was the only person to show up. However, connecting people is what I do even when nobody is watching (or paying), so to me it’s just part of learning by doing/failure.
The guide for community managers is a nice basis that I could contribute to develop from experiences as a community manager and facilitator, another example includes utopia.de, where I managed the online community before the current redesign (an interview that’s still online here), or as a facilitator of numerous workshops (e.g. here or here).
I come with both an entrepreneurial spirit as well as a desire to be in service of impactful projects. Shall we have a call to explore how I can be useful?
Thanks for reading until here, have a great evening! 
