As a consultant, I design community economic tools — complementary currencies, circular traceability systems, and the governance structures that hold them together.

This work grows from a broader practice. Since 2011, through Trasformatorio, I have developed a methodology rooted in artistic research, participatory performance, and serious game design. The same approach that shapes my work as a media artist and director — building situations where people think, play, and decide together — is what I bring to the design of economic infrastructure for communities and organizations.

Based in Amsterdam, I work primarily across Italy and Europe, with occasional forays further afield (Taipei to Hangzhou).

How I work

I don't arrive with a platform to deploy. I start by listening to what a community already does — mapping its actors, exchanges, and relationships — and I design from there.

My methodology comes from Trasformatorio, a participatory research practice I founded in 2011 that brings together artists, researchers, and local communities in intensive collaborative labs. From this experience I co-created Le Grand Jeu, an open-source serious game where participants model economic systems by playing them. It is not a simulation: the game generates real proposals, governance rules, and relationship maps that become the basis for implementation.

Three commitments run through all of this work. The first is permaculture: I trained as a permaculture designer in 2021, but the principles — observe before you intervene, work with existing patterns, design for multiple yields — have shaped my practice for much longer. The second is free software: every tool I build is open, inspectable, and owned by the community that uses it. The third is critical data: I work on data awareness and data literacy as a researcher at the University of Amsterdam, because no economic tool is neutral, and the people using it should understand what it measures and what it leaves out.

This means the tools I build — whether a community currency, a traceability system, or a network governance model — are shaped by the people who will use them, before any code is written. Technology enters the process late, by design. When it does, I favor transparent, verifiable infrastructure: public ledgers, open protocols, and systems that a community can inspect and, if needed, walk away from.

What I work on

Complementary currency design. I help communities design and deploy their own exchange systems — from the economic model and governance rules to the technical infrastructure. This includes token design, onboarding strategies, and the social agreements that make a currency circulate. My current work on the Rete delle Palanche in Genoa is a community currency built on transparent ledger infrastructure, operating across a network of associations, cooperatives, and small enterprises.

Circular traceability systems. Garments, objects, and materials carry stories. I design systems that make those stories legible and verifiable — tracking provenance, reconditioning, and circulation through their entire lifecycle. As a long-standing member of the IoT Council, I have written and contributed to multiple IoT project proposals, which gives me a practical understanding of what these technologies can and cannot do. This work is currently grounded in the ReAC (Rete Abiti in Circolazione) network in Genoa, where textile actors collaborate on a shared infrastructure for garment traceability.

Network mapping and value flow analysis. Before designing any tool, I map what already exists: who are the actors, what do they exchange, where does value flow and where does it leak. This diagnostic work combines fieldwork, data analysis, and participatory methods to produce actionable maps that a community can use to make decisions about its own infrastructure.

Participatory workshops and serious game facilitation. Through Le Grand Jeu and the Trasformatorio methodology, I design and facilitate sessions where participants collectively model economic scenarios, test governance ideas, and generate concrete proposals. These are not team-building exercises — they are working sessions that produce usable outputs.

Selected projects

Rete delle Palanche — Genoa, 2025–ongoing. A community currency network connecting associations, cooperatives, and small enterprises across multiple neighborhoods in Genoa. I designed the token economics, governance model, and technical infrastructure, and I coordinate onboarding and network growth. The currency operates on a public ledger with a radical transparency principle. Participants interact through a network of Telegram bots and a public network visualization. → retepalanche.it

ReAC / Ogigia — Genoa, 2025–ongoing. Rete Abiti in Circolazione is a network of textile actors — from fashion ateliers to social cooperatives — building shared infrastructure for garment traceability and circular exchange. Within this network, the Ogigia project pioneered a labeling system that links physical garments to verifiable digital records, creating an accountability layer across the entire lifecycle of a reconditioned piece. I serve as technical lead and token system designer. → ogigiazena.it

Le Grand Jeu — 2016–ongoing. An open-source board game for collectively modeling economic systems, co-created with the Trasformatorio network. Anyone can learn it and use it — it requires no special technology, just a printed board, tokens, and a group willing to negotiate. Players don't simulate an economy — they build one together, producing governance proposals, relationship maps, and value flow models as direct outputs of play. The game has been used in participatory research contexts across Europe, including workshops within the SPES Horizon Europe project. Its low-barrier, no-tech format makes it particularly relevant for communities in the Global South, where economic codesign tools should not depend on digital infrastructure or expensive platforms. → github.com/freddbomba/legrandjeu-rulebook

Trasformatorio labs — Montalbano Elicona, Scaletta Zanclea, and other sites, 2013–ongoing. Intensive participatory labs bringing together artists, researchers, and local communities for site-specific collaborative creation. These labs are where the methodology behind all of the above was developed and tested. → trasformatorio.net

Working with me

My engagements typically begin with a conversation and a mapping exercise — understanding who is involved, what already works, and what is missing. From there, depending on the scope, I work on design, facilitation, technical implementation, or a combination of these.

I work as an independent consultant, often in collaboration with researchers, designers, and local organizations. Engagements range from short workshop facilitations to long-term infrastructure design spanning multiple years. I am comfortable working in Italian, English, and French.

If you are a community organization, a cooperative, a municipality, or a cultural institution exploring complementary currencies, circular economy infrastructure, or participatory governance — or if you are not sure yet what you need but know something needs to change — I am happy to talk.

You can reach me at fredd@trasformatorio.net or on Telegram at @freddbomba.