New CTO Norman Colon at OpenDeSci

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 16, 2026 

The OpenDeSci Foundation today appointed Norman Colon as Chief Technology Officer, formalising his role as it enters a six-month sprint to public MVP launch, succeeding Neil Desh, who steps down in good faith and remains with the Foundation as a trusted technology advisor. 

Colon will lead the Foundation's technology strategy, AI engineering roadmap, and product execution as OpenDeSci scales its consumer-first science platform, a TikTok-style short-form science feed, the Scientific Paper AI Topic Explorer, and a Web3 trust layer for stablecoin payouts and on-chain credentials.

He brings seven years of full-stack engineering leadership, including senior roles at Microsoft, where he led microservices migrations in fintech that materially improved deployment velocity and system reliability.

OpenDeSci is targeting the convergence of the $2.75T global R&D market and the $470B science education content market (14.5% CAGR to 2028), backed by 50,000+ waitlisted users, a 500+ alpha community members, four international awards, and an academic partnership with St.Gallen IMT Business School.

"Norman has the technical range and product instinct to take OpenDeSci from prototype to scale. He ships, he leads, and he understands what it takes to build trust at the intersection of AI and Web3." David Wang, Founder, OpenDeSci

Comments from Norman Colon, CTO

"I'm excited to join OpenDeSci to help shape the future of science. The way the world consumes knowledge has changed; science hasn't kept up. We will fix that."

"My focus is clear: ship a world-class consumer mobile experience, build an AI content pipeline that preserves scientific integrity, and design on-chain incentives that work at scale."

"OpenDeSci is engineering-first and AI-native from day one. We use Claude Code for autonomous, multi-file delivery, Cursor for daily development flow, and ClaudeBot — our in-house AI engineering agent — for code review and CI/CD automation. The stack lets a small team ship what a 50-person engineering organisation delivered three years ago."

About OpenDeSci

OpenDeSci is a next-generation science education and content platform leveraging AI and Web3 to make science radically more accessible, transparent, and engaging for 8 billion people. Headquartered through the OpenDeSci Foundation, the company combines a TikTok-style short-form science feed, AI-powered paper exploration, and a Web3 creator economy with stablecoin payouts and on-chain credentials — bridging the credibility of academia with the engagement of social media.

Media contact: press@opendesci.org www.opendesci.org · X: www.x.com/opendesciorg 

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