In 2017, the Vocdoni Layer-1 blockchain was launched in Barcelona to support open-source solutions that facilitate organizational decision-making. The team, including co-founders Pau Escrich and Jordi Pinyana, focus on bridging Web2 applications with Web3 technologies led to using zero-knowledge proofs and decentralized infrastructure to build tamper-resistant and trustworthy voting tools. 

Over the years since launch, Tech Lead Pau Escrich and Core Developer Jordi Pinyana helped drive adoption of Vocdoni’s secure, privacy-preserving voting systems through partnerships with institutions and organizations like the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and Decidim, introducing the benefits of onchain voting. 

As they looked to the next phase of their work building for digital democracy, Pau, Jordi, and the team created DAVINCI, aka “Decentralized Autonomous Vote Integrity Network with Cryptographic Immutability,” a purpose-built Ethereum Layer-2 for universal voting. As they’ve built the infrastructure for DAVINCI, they recognized the need for privacy-preserving, proof-of-humanity and identity verification tools. This led to Pau and Jordi to explore existing zk-powered solutions, ultimately selecting Self as DAVINCI’s identity layer. 

The Self team caught up with Pau and Jordi as they approach DAVINCI’s launch to learn more about their journey with Vocdoni, the vision for DAVINCI, and how Self is unlocking privacy-preserving identity for the future of governance. 

What inspired you to develop Vocdoni?

Jordi: During the Catalan referendum in 2017, I witnessed how fragile democracy can be. Since then, I've dedicated myself to Vocdoni with the mission of creating a transparent and verifiable voting system that enables anyone, anywhere, at any time to conduct democratic voting processes with complete guarantees.

When did you decide identity verification was a core pillar to solve for?

Pau: From the beginning, when we started Vocdoni, a group of Catalan activists (including Jordi Baylina) outlined the technological stack to build a fully decentralized solution that could give society true sovereignty and decision-making power. Identity was always one of the fundamental pillars.

At that time, Jordi launched Iden3 while I focused on Vocdoni, with the idea that our technologies would converge. Unfortunately, Iden3 was discontinued, and since then we’ve been searching for the best identity partner to integrate.

Jordi: I fundamentally see participation and identification as inseparable. Identity serves as an essential foundation for building any effective decision-making system.

Why did you choose Self for the identity layer?

Pau: Self-sovereign identity projects have struggled to reach adoption. There were promising experiments (uPort and Iden3) but none succeeded at scale.

Recent progress in zkSNARK technology makes it possible to leverage national electronic IDs and passports in a privacy-preserving way. Instead of inventing a new identity system, we can build on what society already has, while adding privacy, sovereignty, and cryptographic guarantees.

This is what Self is doing. After analyzing other approaches, we found Self the best fit: a clear mission, a vision aligned with ours, and solid technology that makes integration possible.

Jordi: I see Self as a state-of-the-art decentralized, zk-based, self-sovereign solution that utilizes progress in digital identity while maintaining a user-centric approach.

It works, is easily integrable, and supports widely used standards for electronic IDs and passports. This is crucial because we cannot rely on arbitrary identities from internet reputation points, we need current and legally accepted identification mechanisms.

What’s your vision for the future of Vocdoni?

Pau: When we designed the DAVINCI protocol, our goal was to enable a fully verifiable, trustless path for collective decision-making. By integrating official identities, DAVINCI becomes a system where trust relies on cryptography, with potential for legal validity. This is the foundation for Democracy 2.0: bottom-up, self-sovereign, open source, accessible to anyone. A democracy where technology protects and guarantees freedom of choice.

With Self and Vocdoni, we can achieve the dream that inspired us in 2017: empowering citizens to generate irrefutable cryptographic proof of their collective will. That is the future of Vocdoni and the realization of our mission from the start.

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