This past Wednesday my wife Roxana and I had the pleasure of lunching with Guillaume Saunier, his wife Sara, and the undeniable star of our gathering, their four month old daughter, Cynthia.

Roxana and I made the trip to Biarritz specifically for the occasion, and during a delicious meal at La Plancha Ilbarritz, we chatted about how children change your life, living in the EU, going to camp in Virginia, and the small world story of how we came to be meeting like this.

I know Guillaume because my son Louis put me in contact with him back around the time that the two of them met while Guillaume was in L.A. for his talk at the 22nd Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE). He works for Octree, a small Swiss company that provides technical support for Decidim. NOVA Web Development is currently contracting with Octree to host a small Decidim deployment for the community organization NOVASEN.

When I asked Guillaume how he came to be in Los Angeles meeting with Louis, he told me that Octree had been looking for a U.S. Decidim partner, and had been referred to the Agaric Tech Coop where Louis was working.

Guillaume was in Los Angeles because he had been invited by George Vamos, one of the organizers of SCALE, to present at the conference. In addition to organizing SCALE, George is involved with Public Democracy Los Angeles (PDLA), an organization dedicated to helping create civic assemblies in Los Angeles. Given his involvement in both SCALE and PDLA, it makes total sense that George would want to invite Guillaume to give a talk at SCALE 22.

Looking back through my emails now, I found an email from Louis that he sent Sahnun and me in November of 2025 introducing us to George Vamos and someone named Max Clark, whom I have yet to meet, and telling us about their interest in Decidim. I had already had a "chance" lunch meeting with George arranged my our mutual friend, Dr. Stephen Hubbard, during my visit to L.A. to see Louie the previous April. During that lunch, while chatting about Decidim, it turned out that George had already spoken with Louie, having been pointed to Agaric by Guillaume.

Decidim Brings Us All Together

In talking with Guillaume about the history of the Decidim community's outreach efforts, it turns out that my meeting with George Vamos, and indeed the fact that Stephan Hubbard and I both started the non-profit organization Social Justice Computing together may not have been such a coincidence after all.

Guillaume told me that early on the Decidim community focused their global outreach efforts around the "Code for ..." groups, like Code for America in the U.S., that existed around the world. I had been a brigade captain in a local Code for America brigade, which was what the local groups affiliated with the national non-profit were called. Stephan had originally reached out to me because I was a leader of the Code for NOVA brigade.

If it was George that suggested to Stephan that he reach out to Code for America with his project idea, and if that suggestion was in any way related to the connection between Code for America and Decidim, then it may be Decidim that is responsible for connecting Guillaume, Louie, George, Stephan, and George and me.

I'll be getting together with George and Stephan next week in California, so I'll have a chance to look into this further.

Even if I am reading a bit more into the Decidim connection than actually exists, there is no doubt that Decidim has been the catalyst for the burgeoning relationship among Guillaume, George, Stephan, and me, as well as the other members of NOVA Web Development, Jetro Web Development, and Social Justice Computing.

One Thing That Definitely Was a Coincidence

I'll end this post with one thing that happened on my trip to Spain that definitely is a delightful coincidence, pure and simple.

It just so happened that on the day I landed in Barcelona, July 19th (Sandinista Revolution Day), Spain was playing in the final game of the World Cup. I settled into my hotel and made my way to a local bar, Bar Beethoven, where I got to watch Spain win the game with a group of celebrating Spaniards. It was a lot of fun, and totally serendipitous.

¡Viva la Revolución Sandinista! ¡Viva España!

Jeff Elkner
31 July 2026