I design the plumbing that lets strangers (and now machines) do things together.
At the ZKsync Association I’m Head of Governance and Operations, where I designed the governance system that approved and executed over a dozen protocol upgrades in its first year. I also lead the Protocols for Business group at the Protocol Institute, where we study emerging forms of protocol management and train protocol vision, the capability to see the protocols a business actually runs on. Lately I’ve been building small experiments in how people and robots coordinate: a rover you can drive over open protocols, and a speculative market where operators bid to send robots on jobs.
If you’re working on protocols for people or for machines, write to me.
For event organisers: bio and headshot
Short bio
Rafael Fernández designs the plumbing that lets strangers, and increasingly machines, do things together. He is Head of Governance and Operations at the ZKsync Association and leads the Protocols for Business group at the Protocol Institute. He is based in Berlin.
Long bio
Rafael Fernández designs the plumbing that lets strangers, and increasingly machines, do things together. As Head of Governance and Operations at the ZKsync Association, he designed ZKsync’s governance system of a Token Assembly, Security Council and Guardians, which went live onchain in September 2024 and approved and executed over a dozen protocol upgrades in its first year. He leads the Protocols for Business group at the Protocol Institute, where he published an AI Capability Maturity Model, and was a core researcher in the Summer of Protocols, where he wrote “Welcome to the Swarm”, on how online swarms coordinate. He writes NPC Memo, a speculative field guide on management, and builds small experiments in how people and robots coordinate. Originally from Puerto Rico, he lives in Berlin.
Work
Governing high-stakes systems
- ZKsync governance systemChange control for a live network2024–
- Software as a substrate of controlA talk at DAWO262026
- Token rights as a new governance paradigmA talk, on video2025
Robots and autonomy
- Rover teleoperation via open protocolsDrive it from your browser2026
- A task market for robotsSpeculative: operators bid to send robots on site surveys2026
- A field that builds itselfMulti-agent simulation, tuned over seeded runs2026
How organizations run on protocols
- Protocols for BusinessReadings from aviation, nuclear and spaceflight2026–
- AI capability maturity modelFive levels, from shadow AI to strategy2026
- It’s time to discover, not file, water dataDiscovery beats standardisation2026
Other explorations
- NPC MemoA speculative field guide on management2025–
- Welcome to the SwarmHow online swarms coordinate2023
- Obras del PaísDocumenting Puerto Rican artisans2020
Write to me
Or find me on LinkedIn.