A Barn-Raising for a New Civilization: The Festival of Prototypes
Regenerative Futures Lab Session 3 Recap (the sixth and last session from the Presencing Series)
June 18, 2026
On June 18th, sixty prototype initiatives for systems transformation came forward — to be seen, to receive feedback, to be nurtured, and to grow into their next iteration and stage of development.
Two rounds of 25-minute pitch sessions. Thirty-plus volunteer facilitators holding space. Hundreds of participants self-navigating across breakout rooms toward the initiatives that called to them most.
This was the Festival of Prototypes — the culminating session of Presencing Series 2026, and the third and final session of the Regenerative Futures Lab.
It was, as Eva Pomeroy noted with characteristic honesty, a prototype itself.
"We always wanted to convene in this way," she said. "It's never happened, and this is our first time trying it out."
Opening: Hands of a Mother
Linda Shuma, co-executive director of Ubuntu.Lab — the regional expression of u-school's work in Africa — grounded the gathering in something older than any session framework.
"I ground myself on a lesser," she began, referencing the fabric worn by ladies across East Africa. "On this lesser is the inscription: Mikono Yamama Nidawa. Which, when translated, means... Hands of a mother. A medicine. And the healing."
She spoke of Mama Us — the earth — holding each person seated in different spots around the globe. Of the woven basket and what the weaving of art, culture, stories, and religion is bringing forth into the world. Of the drum, the Karimba, the rhythm that keeps us moving and sensing to the world around us.
"We come into this circle having observed and listened. To ourselves. To those around us. And indeed, to the different communities that we all live in. Communities that give us inspiration. And causing something different to emerge from each and within each of us."
It was a reminder that before strategy, before prototypes, before pitches — there is the ground. There is the earth. There is the mother holding us close, healing us with high electrons, giving us balance.
Eva's Welcome: The Lab as Workspace
Eva Pomeroy welcomed the gathering warmly, placing this final session within the arc of everything that had come before.
"The Regenerative Futures Lab is part of a longer series, the Presencing Series, which started in March. And it's really the workspace of that series — where we come together in community, we bring our ideas and initiatives for the change that we want to see in the world, that we want to be a part of. And together, with processes and a workshop space, we work together as colleagues and peers to evolve those ideas and those initiatives."
She named the scale of what was about to happen: 60 prototypes, presented across two rounds of breakout sessions, with participants free to navigate toward the initiatives that resonated most. Some of these prototypes were newly seeded during the series itself. Others had been in place for some time, arriving at a moment of readiness for fresh perspectives and new feedback.
"All of them," she said, "are at a place of readiness for gaining some insight to move forward."
She described the pitch format: 5 to 7 minutes for presenters to share their prototype and the questions they were holding, followed by approximately 14 minutes of feedback in two forms.
The first: mirroring. "When you heard this presentation, where did you connect with it? Where did you feel touched? Maybe you felt your own energy rise? Sharing back that resonance is really helpful and important for presenters."
The second: golden advice. "Hold the highest future potential of this prototype in your heart. And from that place, from that place of generosity and a genuine desire to see this prototype evolve to what it needs to be in the world, offer maybe one thing that, if it was done differently, could make a big difference."
She also named the team holding the session together — Maria and Dayani in the chat, Deniz on technical support, Stefan weaving behind the scenes, and 30-plus volunteer facilitators stepping into the breakout spaces.
"We are both delighted and just really grateful for the generosity of spirit and of time that you bring to today's session."
Otto's Grounding: A Barn-Raising for a New Civilization
Otto Scharmer opened with a moment of intentional stillness — inviting everyone to feel their feet on the earth, trace their attention upward through the spine to the crown of the head, and then join those connections in the heart.
"Notice the energy, the knowing, the light of your heart. Notice how we connect to everyone else, in this moment, in this call, across the planet, spanning all the regions."
From that grounded place, he offered a brief but resonant framing of the journey the series had traveled.
The series had begun in early March, he recalled, attending to the rupture, fracture, and absenting shaping our current moment — and the possibility it simultaneously holds for regeneration and rebirth.
In the second session, the community leaned into the AI moment. "We realized AI is brilliant — it's a brilliant but backward-looking intelligence, trained on data of the past, that needs to be complemented with at least two other forms of intelligence."
OI — organic intelligence — the multiple perspectives of living organisms that co-evolve.
And SI — source intelligence — the knowing of the whole field. "The knowing of the whole field that senses not only what is, but also senses into what is wanting to emerge. The future that stays in need of us. That depends on our agency to manifest."
He connected SI directly to what Linda had opened with: "SI is not just adding another perspective, but it's really deepening the attention to the social soil that Linda just was talking about."
And then he named what today represented.
"Today is both a celebration of all these great initiatives and seeds of the future that we have seen emerging — which includes the 60 initiatives that will be presented today. But not just them, because we know that there's a lot more that many of us are holding here."
He offered a frame that expanded the meaning of what was happening: "What we are really doing here is like a collective barn-raising process. A barn-raising for a new village, or perhaps a new civilization. In other words, a new way of living and working together — that together with our activities, we begin to seed and cultivate."
He named the question he believes every individual, organization, community, and society will soon face: "What future do I want to create? What story of the future, do I, with my life energy, want to be in support of?"
And he grounded the session in what had been the through-line of the entire series: "All of that is really about the cultivation of the social soil. And it's grounded in realigning our attention with our intention — intention in the sense of what is the future that we want to be part of — realigning attention and intention in a way that activates our agency, both individually and collectively."
He placed today within that larger unfolding — a beginning, not an ending.
"With this event today, of course, is not ending. But it's just beginning."
The Festival: Sixty Seeds in Two Rounds
Then the festival began.
Participants moved into breakout rooms — self-navigating toward the prototypes that called to them most, guided by a PDF catalog of all 60 initiatives with brief descriptions and room numbers.
In the first round, rooms 3 through 33 opened — 31 prototypes presented simultaneously, each held by a volunteer facilitator, each drawing in supporters from across the global community.
After a brief return to the main space, rooms 34 through 64 opened for the second round — 31 more prototypes, another 25 minutes of pitching, mirroring, and golden advice.
In 60 rooms spanning languages, time zones, and continents, something was happening that no recap can fully capture. Prototype presenters were articulating — for the first time, or in a new way — what they had been building and why it mattered. Supporters were feeling their own excitement rise as they listened. Golden advice was being offered from a place of genuine care. Connections were forming between people who had never met, around ideas they had been cultivating alone.
The Harvest: What Emerged
When participants returned to the main space, Eva invited two questions: for presenters, what clarified for you? For supporters, what was the most significant insight or impulse you carry forward?
The chat filled immediately.
"What clarified for me is that what we're feeling resonates with others, and that there are many of us feeling and sensing the same, looking for solutions."
"Clarified that the prototype and the model resonates with many — reinforcement of some of the elements that I was not able to describe in the pitch, and great ideas for others."
"A reminder to let go and allow more space for being versus doing."
"So powerful to witness the courage of someone sharing their purpose and heart, and to be there to champion them."
"The very concept of a prototype is a thousand times more clear for me now."
"An insight that we're all alive with support for these brilliant prototypes. We are on track to the future we want to create."
"As a supporter, this was a chance for soulful reflection."
"The most significant insight: not to go into isolated bubbles, but keep reconnecting to diverse thinking across networks."
Sharon Joy spoke to what the session revealed about the long game of community building: "What I sensed is the value of the years of cultivating the social field of the Presencing Institute, because people felt safe enough to be honest — just great candor with strangers. That would not have happened without an ongoing, cultivated social field that you presented."
Marcus Aurelius Higgs reflected on the experience of being simultaneously on the receiving and giving end: "It was just so beautiful to see so many ideas, and then the feedback and other people doing variations of my prototype, that then offered to refine the idea. And just immense gratitude for hosting and holding the space, and then everything that came of it."
Nina Klein raised a question that opened into a larger horizon: "I was so impressed to see how many movements are already out there. I was wondering if there is already a platform or a council for social impact where all the movements are gathered together — because I have the impression that everywhere people are going in the same direction, but it would also be great to co-create and co-sense already there."
Eva turned the question back to the community, noting that the prototype gallery itself was a partial answer, and invited the community to crowdsource responses in the chat.
Beth Gismervik, who works in AI research and social media research, named the contrast between this gathering and the spaces where decisions about AI are typically made: "A meeting like this felt very starkly different than the conversations that are happening in that space, where those conversations are a lot of governance, and guardrails, and admissibility. It's very theoretical, and it's also very narrowing. Everybody's trying to get out ahead of the narrowed solution. Coming into a space like this, where you can have a bunch of people and they could explore the texture and the unknown, and have a space to navigate within that, and to see each other's humanity — I had some tears in my group. It felt very different to be in a space like this than to be in a space where these decisions are being made. And I'm going to carry some of this with me into the conversations that I'm going to have."
Christoph Gran offered the closing reflection of the harvest: "As a social gardener, sometimes I forget that I'm also a plant in a garden — or I don't feel it enough, let's put it this way. And you made me feel it. And you made me feel my own... plant."
Eva received it with warmth: "What a beautiful close."
Closing: The Journey Continues
Eva closed the session with announcements and an invitation to stay connected.
The prototype gallery's chat function was opening as a way for supporters and presenters to continue the conversations begun in the breakout rooms. u-lab — the Presencing Institute's capacity building offering hosted for 11 years on MITx — is entering a transformation of its own, becoming more modular and versatile. The Presencing Foundation Program would be convening in Philadelphia in October for those seeking in-person community. And for anyone who had benefited from the series, Eva offered a quiet, sincere invitation to contribute: "These kinds of events happen only because people like you contribute and support our work with donations."
Then the multilingual goodbye that has closed every session of this series — voices unmuting from across the world, saying farewell in their own languages.
What This Series Built
Six sessions. March through June. Soil health and human health. AI and the consciousness gap. Open space dialogue. Connecting to source through the social arts. Prototyping workshops. And finally, this — a festival.
What the Festival of Prototypes revealed is something that cannot be manufactured: the accumulated trust of a community that had been growing together for months. The candor that Sharon Joy noticed between strangers. The tears that Beth carried into her next AI governance conversation. The feeling that Christoph found — of being a plant in a garden, held.
Otto had called it a barn-raising for a new civilization. And what a barn-raising requires, above all, is people showing up. Bringing what they have. Trusting the community to hold what they offer.
On June 18th, sixty times over, that is what happened.
"We are on track to the future we want to create."
The Presencing Series 2026 has concluded. To stay connected with the Presencing Institute, follow-up information including the prototypes, u-lab updates, and upcoming programs will be shared through our newsletter. Register today.
