Why we are here
We believe in putting humans at the frontier of intelligence and innovation. With rich data and open technologies, OSO empowers people to make the strategic decisions to change the world for the better.
When we started in 2023, most of the data industry operated in isolated and independent data silos, with each company operating their own expensive data warehouses. Data-driven applications, from AI agents to web applications meant building within your data silo, and interfacing with the world through custom APIs and protocols. These systems were too unstructured and brittle to handle the big strategic questions our community cared about.
We saw the need for a different way of collaborating, so we set out to build it. We believe intelligence isn't a monolith and we all achieve more when we work together. OSO takes an open source approach to building a networked intelligence layer that combines the best of human and artificial intelligence, powered by diverse data, and mediated by a shared semantic layer.
That's why we started OSO. Together, we are forming the collective intelligence superorganism.
What we do
The OSO community builds a suite of products that turbo-charges human-driven data analysis and collective understanding of real-world data. We are focused on building the best user experience for working with data, empowering users to answer complex strategic questions without requiring them to constantly work on data plumbing. To achieve this, we have built a sophisticated open source data platform that integrates diverse data sources, automates data cleaning, structures the data into higher-level semantic understanding, and accelerates time-to-insight with intuitive interactive tools.
We are a community of mission-aligned engineers, analysts, and researchers from all around the world. From PhDs in distributed systems to expert economists, we combine open source engineering accelerationism with socially responsible collective governance to execute towards our mission. Together, we will democratize both the production and consumption of collective intelligence. Data is too powerful to leave in the hands to a small number of secretive institutions.
The OSO community grows by meeting people where they are and diving deep into solving their most important problems. We send engineers to work directly with our customers and partners, integrating with their data and working in true partnership. Every engineering decision aims to accelerate time-to-insight so that we can showcase actionable results in days, not months.
Where did we come from
Open Source Observer was incubated in Protocol Labs as part of the Network Goods group in 2023 to democratize impact evaluation in crypto software supply chains. After spinning out, we expanded to other ecosystems starting with Optimism Retro Funding. As our datasets and tooling expanded, so did our impact. In 2024, we formed the Public Goods Foundation, a 501(c)(6) non-profit, dedicated to advancing the health of the public goods ecosystem.
Where are we going
Organizations around the world use OSO to help them do their most important work, particularly in high-growth industries.
The Ethereum Foundation trains models on OSO data to optimally fund their open source dependencies. The Optimism Collective uses OSO identify and reward the most impactful projects in their ecosystem, as well as understand the ROI of different capital allocation systems. But these are just the beginning.
As we onboard new datasets, develop new data models, and improve our tooling, we are building a future where public institutions, commercial enterprises, and non-profit organizations can 10x their data-driven strategic capacity, accelerating product development, go-to-market, and experimentation.
To learn more, check out our
docs.
100+
open source contributors
from around the world
1000+
data models for measuring impact
$10M+
in funding programs per year