With Zero-knowledge Audiovisual Club (Zk Av Club), we’re taking a grassroots approach to media-making—one that depends on cooperation, hyper-flexibility, and deep connection to the communities we’re part of. To build a living, historical audiovisual archive with them, for them, and by them, we need to stay in tune with their needs (a moving target) and the emergent tools that can truly help.
We’re about empowerment—through knowledge, skills, and experience. Always with a focus on privacy, free and open-source software, and decentralized network technologies.
Zk Av Club Foundry is our live vehicle for that exploration. A rolling experiment in how contemporary, accessible audiovisual tools can support community storytelling and self-representation. It’s about building capacity—together—through hands-on learning and shared discovery.
In the first six months of Zk Av Club Foundry livestreams, we’ve worked with communities to explore:
- community-powered restreaming and live translation
- community-led workshops and peer-to-peer training
- clip-editing workflows and community contests
- free (as in freedom) and open, on-location recording stations designed for real-world deployment
We’re not just building tools—we’re co-creating approaches others can adapt, remix, and make their own. Because yeah: vehicles in motion are hard to build. And slow to steer. But they can take you places traditional, top-down approaches never could.
Back in January, if you’d asked me, “What is Foundry?” I probably would’ve said:
“Zk Av Club Foundry is a year-long, bi-weekly livestream series combining expert interviews (Salon) and hands-on workshops (Lab) to educate and engage Web3 and DWeb creators around privacy, decentralization, and open-source tools.”
That line came from our original grant proposal—and, honestly, from ChatGPT, when I asked it to summarize it.
Since then? We’ve learned a lot. And a lot has changed.
The original approach to Zk Av Club Foundry was too top-down. It felt too much like a traditional podcast. And the delivery timeline was much too tight for what we’re actually trying to do. So we made changes.
We slowed down. We listened more. We opened up space for the communities we’re working with to shape the format, the topics, the timing—even the tools.
Instead of sticking to a rigid bi-weekly schedule, we now hold a Foundry livestream discussion every four weeks—a rhythm that allows for reflection, preparation, and deeper collaboration in between. These cornerstone livestreams are still a key part of the project, but no longer the center of gravity.
Because the real momentum? It’s happening off-camera.
Our audience communities—people who’ve been learning and building alongside us—have started hosting their own workshops, teaching each other the skills, processes, and tools we’ve been exploring together. This is the true measure of Foundry’s success: the shift from passive viewers to active organizers, educators, documentarians, and creators in their own right.
This is why we say: Don’t just watch.
We’re not done. Not even close. But the foundation is being built—and it’s not being built alone.
Zk Av Club Foundry is becoming what it was meant to be all along: a commons for community skill-sharing and collective storytelling, shaped by the people who show up and participate.
With these new processes and this evolving path, the Zk Av Club Foundry team will produce a total of 11 cornerstone livestream sessions in 2025, along with countless community-led workshops across the globe.
Zk Av Club Foundry sessions so far include:
- Remote Event Collaboration + Restreaming
- Building a Global Community + Live Translation
- Collaborative Learning + Community-Led Workshops
- Contests for Live Events + Clip Editing
- Community-Powered Recording Stations
Where are we going from here?
- Broadcasting as Community Infrastructure – July 25, 2025
- Why broadcasting matters for grassroots communities
- Examples of broadcasting as public service & resistance
- Tools for streaming to your own communities
- Audio Recording & Processing – August 22, 2025
- Audio-first philosophy: why audio quality matters more than video
- Recommended mics, recorders (Zoom, Rode, etc.), and mobile setups
- Open-source tools for audio editing
- How to fix, clean, and publish audio for podcasts or clips
- Meeting Platforms for Community Gatherings – September 19, 2025
- Open-source and decentralized platforms for online events
- Hybrid calls, remote panels, and privacy-first meetings
- Tips on performance, moderation, language support, and interactivity
- Virtual Conferences and Meetups – October 17, 2025
- How to organize a virtual event using open tools and decentralized tech
- Case studies: Zcon, DWeb, Zk Av Club events
- Streaming to multiple platforms, managing translations, building community
- Why small, community-led virtual events matter more than ever
- Decentralized Media: Storage, Streaming, and Sharing – November 14, 2025
- Decentralized streaming platforms
- Storing and distributing large video files
- Peer-to-peer file sharing
- Challenges and tradeoffs: bandwidth, economics, discoverability
- Year-End Recap & Project Updates – December 12, 2025
- Recap of tools, tactics, and tech introduced throughout the year
- Updates from community leaders and participants
- Showcase of highlights, workshops, and stories from around the world
- Vision for 2026 and feedback loop with the Zk Av Club community
Milestone #1 payout request
Since the Zcash Community Grants (ZCG) Community Group Funding 2025 program is for one year and we have now completed six months of work on Zk Av Club Foundry, we’re humbly requesting that ZCG send our first milestone payment of $15,000 USD to ensure we can continue developing and delivering livestreams and community-led workshops.
Requests for payout of remaining milestones will be made in September and near the end of the calendar year.
Thank you @ZCG for approving our startup funding and for the opportunity to share this journey. We’re honored to contribute to the empowerment and growth of the Zcash community with audiovisual tools that amplify both individual voices and collective messaging.