Flesh out README into a landing page for plrd.org visitors

README.md

@@ -1,2 +1,49 @@
-# plrd
-PL R&D
+# Protocol Labs R&D
+
+> Driving R&D breakthroughs to push humanity forward.
+
+**[plrd.org](https://plrd.org)** is the primary public reference for our work. This repo is the GitHub home for Protocol Labs R&D — a landing page and directory for people who arrive here from the site.
+
+## What we do
+
+PL R&D is the field-building and catalytic arm of [Protocol Labs](https://protocol.ai). We de-risk frontier ideas in computing and help them cross from open research into deployment — expanding human **freedom, coordination, intelligence, and cognition**.
+
+Our R&D pipeline moves ideas through five stages, each compounding on the last:
+
+**Research → Development → Productionizing → Production → Scaling**
+
+We help researchers, builders, funders, and institutions coordinate around the technical primitives, open infrastructure, and deployment pathways that make new fields real.
+
+## Focus areas
+
+Our work concentrates in four areas, each mapping to a dimension of human agency that computing is reshaping:
+
+| Focus area | Dimension | Scope |
+|---|---|---|
+| **Sovereign Infrastructure** | freedom | The digital foundations that fundamental rights now depend on. |
+| **Programmable Economies & Governance** | coordination | Open infrastructure for coordination among states, institutions, and individuals. |
+| **Safe AI & Robotics** | intelligence | Frontier capabilities that keep machine intelligence under human direction. |
+| **Neurotechnology** | cognition | The interface that lets human cognition expand by connecting brains with computing. |
+
+## Explore our work
+
+- 🌐 **Website** — [plrd.org](https://plrd.org)
+- 📝 **Blog** — [How PL R&D Accelerates Breakthroughs](https://plrd.org/blog/how-pl-rd-accelerates-breakthroughs)
+- 🎙️ **Talks & podcasts** — [plrd.org/talks](https://plrd.org/talks)
+- 📚 **Publications** — [plrd.org/publications](https://plrd.org/publications)
+- 🧠 **Neurotechnology** — [plneuro.xyz](https://plneuro.xyz)
+- 👥 **Team** — [Meet the team](https://plrd.org/authors)
+
+## The wider Protocol Labs network
+
+- **[Protocol Labs](https://protocol.ai)** — the parent organization (IPFS, libp2p, Filecoin lineage).
+- **[PL Capital](https://plcapital.xyz)** — the investment arm that helps ventures emerging from our fields scale.
+- **[Protocol Labs Research (archive)](https://github.com/protocol/research)** — our earlier research landing repo.
+
+## Get in touch
+
+Interested in collaborating, co-funding, or building at the frontier with us? Reach out via [plrd.org](https://plrd.org).
+
+---
+
+Licensed [CC0 1.0 Universal](./LICENSE) — dedicated to the public domain.