diff --git a/code/upaya/LICENSE.md b/code/upaya/LICENSE.md
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+As a work of the United States Government, this project is in the
+public domain within the United States.
+
+Additionally, we waive copyright and related rights in the work
+worldwide through the CC0 1.0 Universal public domain dedication.
+
+## CC0 1.0 Universal Summary
+
+This is a human-readable summary of the [Legal Code (read the full text)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode).
+
+### No Copyright
+
+The person who associated a work with this deed has dedicated the work to
+the public domain by waiving all of his or her rights to the work worldwide
+under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the
+extent allowed by law.
+
+You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial
+purposes, all without asking permission.
+
+### Other Information
+
+In no way are the patent or trademark rights of any person affected by CC0,
+nor are the rights that other persons may have in the work or in how the
+work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights.
+
+Unless expressly stated otherwise, the person who associated a work with
+this deed makes no warranties about the work, and disclaims liability for
+all uses of the work, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law.
+When using or citing the work, you should not imply endorsement by the
+author or the affirmer.
diff --git a/code/upaya/README.md b/code/upaya/README.md
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+upaya
+================
+The recognition of Identity is an often misunderstood concept in our Democracy. 
+
+
+### Dependencies
+
+- Ruby 2.0+ (try [rbenv](https://github.com/rbenv/rbenv) or [rvm](https://rvm.io/))
+- Bundler (`gem install bundler`)
+- [Vagrant](https://www.vagrantup.com/downloads.html)
+- [Virtualbox](https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads) or [VMware Fusion](https://www.vmware.com/products/fusion)
+
+Or, try the [Laptop](https://github.com/18F/laptop) script for setting up a slick development environment.
+
+### Getting Started
+##### :construction: VM environment coming soon! :construction: 
+- Clone the root repository `git clone git@github.com:18F/identity.git`
+    - change directory to upaya `cd identity/code/upaya`
+- Vagrant up! `vagrant up`
+    - Your virtual machine will be downloaded and provisioned. Once your VM is booted, the provisioning script will install all necessary dependencies and the spec suite will run via `rake spec`. For more information about developing in a VM, see our [Wiki entry](#).
+
+
+## More Information
+
+**Notice:** This project is still in alpha.
+
+### Why 'upaya'?
+"skill in means" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upaya
+
+## License
+
+[The project is in the public domain](LICENSE.md), and all contributions will also be released in the public domain. By submitting a pull request, you are agreeing to waive all rights to your contribution under the terms of the [CC0 Public Domain Dedication](http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/).
+
+This project constitutes an original work of the United States Government.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/code/upaya/README.rdoc b/code/upaya/README.rdoc
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-== README
-
-This README would normally document whatever steps are necessary to get the
-application up and running.
-
-Things you may want to cover:
-
-* Ruby version
-
-* System dependencies
-
-* Configuration
-
-* Database creation
-
-* Database initialization
-
-* How to run the test suite
-
-* Services (job queues, cache servers, search engines, etc.)
-
-* Deployment instructions
-
-* ...
-
-
-Please feel free to use a different markup language if you do not plan to run
-<tt>rake doc:app</tt>.