Zelar City

🏙️ My Experience as COO of Zelar City — A Longevity Pop-Up

In 2024, I was part of — and helped organize — Zelar City, a pop-up city all about longevity, right in the heart of Berlin.

What’s a pop-up city?
It’s a temporary village where people with a shared mission (in this case, making aging optional) come together to live, work, and learn side by side for several weeks. The idea comes from the concept of Network States — online communities stepping into the real world to build something bigger.

At Zelar City, I worked alongside incredible people to co-create this unique space. We hosted workshops, summits, co-working days, and endless deep dives — all focused on longevity, biotech, and the future of human health.

My biggest personal takeaway?
Beyond meeting amazing people, I learned a lot about how to actually run something like this — managing volunteers, solving unexpected problems, and keeping everything running smoothly (sometimes literally putting out fires 🔥).

This experience made me even more certain:
✅ I want to live surrounded by people who care about the same mission.
✅ I believe pop-up cities (and eventually full Network States) could become a powerful tool to accelerate progress in longevity.

If you want to dive deeper, I recorded a full podcast episode sharing everything — from what a pop-up city actually is to how I got to help to organize it. Check it out above! 🎙️

🎥 Behind the Scenes with the Zelar City Core Team
After Zelar, I sat down with Victoria Forster (founder of Zelar City), Laurence Ion (co-founder of Vitalia and VitaDAO), Alexey Strygin, and Anatoly Karlin to reflect on our experience.

Check out the full conversation below! 👇