Nathalie Mezza-Garcia is a complexity scientist and founder and CEO of Seaphia, a consulting firm for floating architecture projects. She is also the former Seavangelesse for Blue Frontiers and their Floating Island Project in French Polynesia. She recently launched the Journal of Special Jurisdictions offering a balanced analysis of ideas around new governance structures.

In this episode, Nathalie explains how she came to study seasteading after thinking about human societies as complex systems and concluding that current governance systems are failing to do what they’re supposed to do. She explains that in order to improve the way decisions get made in complex human societies, we must change our perspective, and seasteading provides the flexibility to do that.

Nathalie shares the lessons she learned from her experience as the international spokesperson for the Floating Island Project in French Polynesia. She talks about the importance of forming relationships with the local residents and policy makers. One of her guiding principles for Seaphia is to build strong relationships with local residents, institutions and governments. 

She advises seasteaders to do thorough research of the partners who get involved in seasteading companies, just like dating someone before deciding to marry that person.

Nathalie explains that it’s easy to find locations where it is technically possible to place a seastead platform, but the complicated part is finding a location where the local partners are enthusiastic about your project.

Seaphia is a consulting service to do market testing for potential seastead projects. They determine how a seasteading business can get to a point that serves the local community as well as business investors. She recommends working with local governments and existing institutions, not working against them. 

Recommendations:

* Nathalie said her favorite project in the U.S. is Alta Sea which focuses on business around floating technologies. * She also has published the Journal of Special Jurisdictions with the Center for Competitive Governance.* The Startup Societies Foundation held a virtual summit and are releasing videos from that summit on their YouTube channel

You can contact Nathalie Mezza-Garcia at nathalie@seaphia.blue.

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