# Network School The **Network School** is a paid residential program founded by [[Balaji Srinivasan]] as the first physical step of the plan in his book *[[The Network State]]*: gather an online community in one place, then grow it toward a self-governing "startup society." It opened in Malaysia in 2024. In July 2026 local authorities shut it down, and within a day Srinivasan announced a move to [[Kazakhstan]]. ## Malaysia, 2024–2026 The school operated in Forest City, a Chinese-developed megaproject in the Malaysian state of Johor, across the strait from Singapore, that remains largely unbuilt and thinly occupied. It began as a 90-day pilot in late 2024 and became a year-long program in 2025. Residents paid $1,500 a month for a room, meals, a gym and workshops. The *[[Wall Street Journal]]* described it as "part tech incubator, part self-improvement retreat." ## The shutdown In July 2026 activists accused the school of bringing Israeli citizens into Malaysia, which does not recognize Israel and generally bars Israeli passport holders. Johor officials inspected the premises. On July 21 the Iskandar Puteri City Council, the local authority for Forest City, revoked the business license of the school's operating company, citing breaches of its licensing and premises-use conditions, and Johor's chief minister ordered all of its activity to stop from the next day. Before the vote Srinivasan had asked for a meeting with the prime minister's office and warned that he would take his investment elsewhere. It made no difference. ## Kazakhstan On July 22, 2026, Srinivasan announced a five-year memorandum of understanding with Kazakhstan's Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development covering a new campus, joint events and hackathons. Few details of the campus were public when it was announced. ## Why it's on the map The Network School was the author of the network state testing his own theory, and it met the same limit as [[Próspera]] in Honduras. The experiment existed by permission of a host government, and the host took the permission back. Srinivasan's answer was not to win sovereignty but to find another host. In practice, exit has meant moving from one landlord state to the next. ## See Also - [[Balaji Srinivasan]] — founder - [[The Network State]] — the book whose plan the school was meant to start - [[Network State]] — the concept - [[Network State Experiments Roster]] — how the school compares with the other projects - [[Próspera]] — the other experiment whose host withdrew consent