Building Movements, Not Just Hosting Events
For 20 years, Unconference.net has pioneered a different approach to gatherings—one where participants don’t just attend, they co-create. Where communities don’t just network, they solve problems together. Where events don’t end when people go home, but spark movements that create lasting change.
Kaliya Young
Founder
Kaliya Young is a globally recognized expert in unconference methodology and movement-building through collaborative gatherings.
In 2005, she co-founded the Internet Identity Workshop (IIW), which has run twice yearly for 20 years and shaped the global digital identity industry. The protocols and standards cultivated at IIW—including OpenID, OAuth, Decentralized Identifiers, and Verifiable Credentials—are now used billions of times daily and being adopted by governments worldwide.
Since then, Kaliya has:
- FOUNDED OR CO-FOUNDED 15+ unconference series spanning technology innovation, social impact, and bioregional organizing.
- FACILITATED 100+ unconferences across North America, Europe, and Asia for clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to grassroots movements.
- PIONEERED unconference applications in digital identity, personal data, Web3 ethics, bioregional regeneration, and community resilience.
- TRAINED thousands of participants in collaborative problem- solving and self-organization.
- CREATED lasting artifacts including published proceedings, co-authoring Group Works Deck: A Pattern Language for Bringing Life to Meetings and other Gatherings and The Remarkable Regenerative Patterns of the Internet Engineering Task Force.