Helena Rong

Builder and leader within SeeDAO, one of the Network Nations project’s key empirical case studies. SeeDAO is a Web3-native platform and community for the Chinese diaspora, offering community retreats, social welfare mechanisms (stipends based on need), and digital spaces for people of Chinese heritage around the world who don’t feel culturally represented by the Chinese state.

SeeDAO exemplifies the Network Nations model of an “additional layer of sovereignty” — existing alongside the Chinese state rather than challenging it, creating functional space for communities that fall between existing national representations. Rong’s insights into building diaspora networks with genuine mutual aid infrastructure and governance make SeeDAO a compelling case study in functional sovereignty and translocal community building.

Appears in: Ep 14: Networked Diasporas — The Case of SeeDAO