The Story Behind Co-Nexus
Why one person decided to build something different
Meet Dmitri
Born in Kharkiv, Ukraine in 1984, Dmitri Sunshine grew up in the shadow of Chernobyl during the collapse of the Soviet Union. His family immigrated to Atlanta, Georgia when he was seven years old, carrying little more than resilience and a belief that something better was always possible.
That belief never left. Dmitri describes himself as a "visionary, community-creator, systems-architect, and entrepreneur." Now based in Boulder, Colorado, he's spent his career building things that bring people together; businesses, communities, systems that work for humans instead of against them.
He's a serial entrepreneur, a relentless optimist, and someone who's never been satisfied with the way things are when he can see how they could be. That restlessness is the seed that became Co-Nexus.
Why Co-Nexus
I spent time living in community in Vilcabamba, Ecuador, and it changed something in me. I saw what happens when people actually share meals, share space, share their lives. It wasn't perfect, but it was alive. It was connected. It was the opposite of the isolation I kept seeing everywhere else.
Back in the States, I watched the loneliness epidemic swallow people whole. Friends struggling to afford rent alone. Parents burning out with no village to lean on. Elders disappearing into facilities where nobody knows their name. The housing crisis, the care crisis, the meaning crisis; they're all symptoms of the same root problem.
I looked at these problems and realized they're all the same problem: we've forgotten how to live together.
So we started building an answer. Not a utopia, not a commune, not another coworking space with a nice kitchen. Something grounded in reality, built for doers instead of talkers, designed so your home is never in jeopardy regardless of what the economy does.
The Solanasis Connection
Dmitri also runs Solanasis, a fractional CIO and CSIO firm that helps small businesses and nonprofits get their technology and security right. It's the day job that funds the dream.
But the two aren't as separate as they might seem. The systems thinking that makes Solanasis work, the security mindset, the obsession with building things that actually function for real people; all of that carries directly into Co-Nexus. We're building a community network the same way you'd build resilient infrastructure: redundant, distributed, designed to survive whatever comes next.
Co-Nexus is the vision project. Solanasis is the work that makes it possible. Both exist because Dmitri can't stop building things that matter.
Join the Founding Team
We're looking for the founding members, the early believers, the people who read this and say "finally."
If you resonate with this vision, there's a place for you here. Whether you want to stay informed, explore membership, or bring your skills to the table, we want to hear from you.