MANDREM, GOA,
INDIA.
Civic R&D is the practice of helping communities continuously learn, adapt, and respond together as technology reshapes the world around them.
A three-week residency where frontier builders, local business owners, researchers, and residents work together in Goa to put that practice into action.
Goa
Field Lab
Mandrem, North Goa · October 2026
For three weeks this October we are working with business owners across North Goa, alongside the state government, Edge City, and partners who have been on this coast for years.
Seven builders and researchers are coming. They will run hands-on sessions with owners, then build beside them on whatever that business actually needs. It costs the owner nothing.
Why Goa
Already moving. The state has committed to a thousand new ventures and ten thousand jobs by 2028, pays back half of what a business spends on AI training, and has put an IT centre in every taluka.
Already the economy. Tourism is about a sixth of what Goa earns and employs roughly a third of its people, most of it family run and independent.
Already using it. Of every Indian region with published data, Goa leads on putting AI to work, and on using it alongside people rather than in place of them.
Not yet measured. The state's own review found that only eight percent of its smaller businesses consider themselves digitally skilled. Past that number, nobody has asked these owners what their week actually looks like. That is the part we are here for.
Three weeks. One cohort. Pods and visits.
A founding cohort of local business owners. A smaller resident team of builders, researchers, and economists. Small pods shaped around shared business problems. Work moves between sessions, business visits, and the places where everyday operations already happen.
Meet local businesses and understand how work already happens. Build trust before building tools.
Small pods prototype alongside business owners, not for them. Every idea begins in a real workflow.
Test tools inside shops, guesthouses, cafés, studios, and small firms where everyday work happens.
THE FIELD LAB IS OPEN.
If you run a business in Goa, we’d love to hear from you.
If you’re interested in supporting the work, let’s talk.
If you’re a builder, researcher, artist, or operator who belongs in the room, introduce yourself.
The future arrives locally.