Villej

Hoy, I'm Jess, and I'm building the Villej, a global metacollective of neurodivergents, disabled, and oppressed people, building our own community wealth through collaboration.

I'm an autistic serial entrepreneur and artist with a background in the Print on Demand industry. When I saw a way to start an ethical gig economy in manufacturing, I invested all I had and much more, knowing that something like this couldn't be placed in the control of investors and venture funding -- or we'd just end up with another Uber.

But that meant no safety net.

So after my app didn't launch on time, with all my credit cards maxed out -- long story short -- I ended up living in a shelter for six months and am still facing housing insecurity, since it's a monumental task to do the work of an entire VC funded team while facing homelessness and also trying to keep your head above water.

And I am not along here. So many of my autistic and neurodivergent and disabled and marginalized friends absolutely struggle under the current system. Because we can't do it all ourselves. And it's really hard to ask for help. The world is isolating and it wasn't made for us. It wasn't made at all.

So I say, let's make a new one. We don't have to petition the current systems for change. All we have to do is learn to work together, building community wealth and power for ourselves, and then share those models freely with others who believe what we believe so they can share in the wealth too.

My initial company, which is incubated by Villej, is nearly at launch. And instead of the profits going to investors, they're going to support us and be reinvested in mutual aid, the shared resources of economies of scales, and subsidies for those of us who are in crisis, or just aren't able to be productive enough to work directly on a project.

As we learned from AutCollab, we are cultivating economies of care, not only for hope for future generations, but hope for us right now.

When neurodivergent systems thinkers come together, there is no problem too impossible to solve. We are doing this. So join in and help us create a better world for all.

- Friday