About Hylo

Hylo is a coordination platform for groups that are trying to do something together — and need better tools to do it. We build software for communities that want to organize, support each other, make decisions, and take collective action. We’re open source, non-profit, and community-governed.

Hylo is maintained by Terran Collective, a small team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. We’ve been building this since 2012 — first as a tool for connecting purpose-driven people, now as coordination infrastructure for communities organizing around shared places, resources, and goals. Hundreds of groups use Hylo today, from neighborhood mutual aid networks to global learning communities to bioregional organizing hubs.

Why we build this

The biggest challenges facing communities today — climate disruption, economic precarity, eroding trust — are coordination problems at their root. People want to help. Organizations are trying. But the tools we have either fragment our efforts across a dozen apps or lock us into platforms designed to extract attention rather than support action.

We believe that when people can actually see each other, support each other, and make decisions together, they become capable of things that no top-down program or market incentive can replicate. A neighborhood that knows how to coordinate mutual aid before a disaster hits. A watershed where land stewards talk to each other across property lines. A city where residents have a real voice in how shared resources are allocated.

This doesn’t happen automatically. It requires trust, and trust requires practice. Hylo is designed to support that practice — starting with simple conversation and mutual support, and growing with groups as they develop the capacity for more complex coordination, collective governance, and shared stewardship.

If Hylo works, a watershed can govern itself.

Read the Hylo Whitepaper

Built with the communities who use it

Every major feature in Hylo was designed in partnership with real groups working on real problems. We don’t build what we think communities need — we listen, co-design, and build what they tell us they need. Then we make it available to everyone on the platform.

Our design partners have included the Planetary Health Alliance, Prosocial World, Salmon Nation, and dozens of local organizing groups. Monthly community calls, co-creation sessions, and the Building Hylo group on Hylo itself keep our roadmap accountable to the people who depend on it.

NTEN

2026 Pizzigati Prize winner — NTEN’s award for open-source public interest technology.

Building Hylo

612 members · Public

Krisha S. Discussion

Notes from today’s co-creation call — we heard loud and clear that…

Tom W. Proposal

Moving mobile notifications to opt-in by default for new members.

Clare B. Project

Participatory roadmap: Q2 co-design sprints — sign-up open.

A technology commons

Hylo is not owned by investors and never will be. It’s a fiscally sponsored non-profit, built on open-source code under the Apache 2.0 license. We’re working toward a permanent structure — likely a purpose-locked nonprofit with cooperative governance — that ensures Hylo can never be captured, sold, or repurposed against the communities it serves.

We govern ourselves using sociocracy — a system of distributed authority where decisions are made by the people closest to the work, through consent rather than top-down control. Our team operates through interconnected circles, each with a clear domain.

General

Strategy and coherence

Product

Direction and design

Development

Technical implementation

Community

Relationships and care

Fundraising

Resourcing and sustainability

What this means in practice: Your data belongs to you. Our code is public. Our finances are transparent. Communities can leave Hylo and take their data with them. And we’re building toward a future where the people who use Hylo have real governance authority over how it’s built and run — not just advisory input.

The team

Hylo is built by Terran Collective — a small, distributed team that practices the same coordination principles we build into the platform. We operate on shared governance, mutual support, and a commitment to building technology that outlasts any one of us.

Tibet Sprague

Director of Technology

Co-founder of Terran Collective and Hylo’s technical architect. Tibet has been building tools for cooperative coordination for over a decade. He also stewards the Collaborative Technology Alliance. Brown University CS.

Clare Brodeur

Director of Product

A technologist and community organizer with a decade of experience mobilizing communities through technology. Clare leads Hylo’s participatory design process, working directly with groups to co-create the tools they need. ProSocial facilitator. UVA Political Science.

Aaron Brodeur

Director of Design

Systems designer and entrepreneur whose work in social technology, solar energy, and distributed governance has reached millions. Aaron leads Hylo’s interface and experience design, and contributes to the Holochain ecosystem through Lightningrod Labs.

Krisha Subramanian

Community Lead

Background in business development with deep roots in regenerative living and social justice. Krisha manages Hylo’s community relationships and stewards a 50-hectare regenerative land project in Costa Rica’s cloud forest.

Tom Watson

Senior Software Engineer

Based in Canberra, Australia. Tom leads Hylo’s mobile development and thinks seriously about what “regenerative culture” means when it stops being a slogan and starts being a design constraint.

Yasmine El Baggari

Community Steward

Originally from Morocco, now in San Francisco. Yasmine has worked with the World Bank, the US State Department, and launched Voyaj to foster cross-cultural connection. Harvard Graduate School of Education. She brings global perspective to Hylo’s community work.