Hey all

A few more cents on the discussion.

I think we should focus on building networks and the technology for them. To be blunt, I support a fund for new networks with the 30k award and funding for libre-ecosystem with the 10k.

Since I began working with CNs, it surprises me how much funding goes into studies, publications, meetings, as compared to the community networks themselves (and the tools they need). I suspect this could be related to the fact that most networks in developed countries have the means to self fund their equipment and volunteer time. But this strategy would have been virtually impossible on the networks I have been involved. It is as if CNs were expected to just sprout out the ground by themselves. At the same time, Beyond the Net last year awarded 30k for the NYC mesh - which of course is a fantastic project, doing very important experiments, but being in NYC doesn't really do much to bridge the digital gap... Even in the mozilla competition where Coolab and Gran Marg participated, a big award went to an wifi project supported by ads. Which in my opinion could get financing from a bank, as opposed to the isolated communities and open hardware/software that should get more unrecoverable support.

Of course I'm all for a gathering and exchange of networks. But as far as I know, ISOC is planning for a global meeting of CNs next year, so I think this would be duplicating the activities (and a waste of the grant, since ISOC will probably use other funds for it). Also Nico has checked the rules before, and they won't support projects where most of the money goes to travel expenses.

I do support strongly though, the idea that more CNs should be managed and built by women. So I wonder if it would be a good idea to put funds for new networks in the hands of the women in the communities. Perhaps an open call for women-led CNs?

In any case I understand the value of all suggestions, and will support whatever the consensus is.

Abraços
Bruno



On Tue, May 15, 2018 at 3:56 AM, Sarbani Banerjee Belur <sarbanibelur@iitb.ac.in> wrote:
Hi Nico,

To the points that Sol had mentioned, I am very keen and interested in the
second point regarding sustainability and addressing the various issues
and challenges. I would like to propose that in addition to this, if we
can work on women in community networks and how they use the network
globally. This would be a very interesting study. Can we propose that?
How do we go about with SIG project with Global scope? Gram Marg is
interested. Gram Marg would be studying the Gender Impact assessment in
its own community led network. Technology challenges and developing
community technology could be something else that can be studied across
all community networks.

I can elaborate on it and discuss it with others as well.

Thanks
With regards,
Sarbani

>
> I have copied the BtN form to these pads:
>
> https://pad.codigosur.org/CNSIG_BeyondTheNet_2018_large
>
> https://pad.codigosur.org/CNSIG_BeyondTheNet_2018_medium
>
> I still think we can receive more oppinions regarding ideas before
> commiting.
>
> Sol, maybe you can share a bit more about the inter-communities exchange
> idea. I believe that it can have great impact, but we would need to
> frame it so that the budget is not mainly used for flights. Maybe it can
> be complemented by other budget sources and we can apply for the medium
> 10K grant for this.
>
>
> I have created the survey so we can choose a date for our meeting:
>
> https://framadate.org/lDDpFkTAVhHqrul6
>
> (same time as usual)
>
>
> Please complete your date options ASAP.
>
>
> I left one week until the call ends so we can have another meeting to
> work on the actual project proposals.
>
>
> Cheers!
> Nico
>
>
> On 05/14/2018 12:26 PM, Gio wrote:
>> I agree on candidating LibreRouter for the big grant, moreover i think
>> we
>> should add something like "Distributed Culture Repository Phase 2" to
>> the
>> community network friendly application cocktail
>>
>> Cheers!
>> Gio
>>
>> On Monday, 14 May 2018 16:28:40 CEST panayotis antoniadis wrote:
>>> Hi Nico and all,
>>>
>>> On 14.05.2018 01:53, Nicolás Echániz wrote:
>>>>> Carlos and NicoP had mentioned a "libreserver" project that if I
>>>>> understood correctly has been somehow put on hold.
>>>>>
>>>>> Perhaps it could be now revived to develop an optional complement of
>>>>> the
>>>>> librerouter, a "mini server" to run local and/or distributed
>>>>> applications (it could be in the simplest case a raspberry Pi or
>>>>> docker
>>>>> image compatible with better hardware).
>>>>>
>>>>> Since the grant is small
>>>>
>>>> From what I understand, there's a medium (10K grand) and a small (3.5K
>>>> grant). We could apply for the medium one.
>>>
>>> OK for me! Just to make it clear, for now NetHood doesn't need funding
>>> and I would be willing to help another CNSIG member to write a good
>>> application on this topic (for us it would be already a success if we
>>> manage to support a complementary to our running projects effort at a
>>> global scale).
>>>
>>>>> it could just involve the assessment of
>>>>> existing solutions, guifi's cloudy, https://cloudy.community/, the
>>>>> MAZI
>>>>> toolkit, http://mazizone.eu/toolkit, yunohost, and other "meta"
>>>>> platforms and put together some of these in a nice "package" with
>>>>> improved multi-lingual documentation.
>>>>>
>>>>> And since the netCommons and MAZI EU projects have already funding to
>>>>> do
>>>>> exactly this, we could present it as a complementary project that
>>>>> builds
>>>>> on existing efforts at the EU level, helping for their sustainability
>>>>> (those project finish at the end of 2018) and adoption, through the
>>>>> "librerouter" package. Or something like this :-)
>>>>
>>>> Coenraad was the person in charge of the LibreServer side-project
>>>> during
>>>> the first LibreRouter cycle. I don't know of you are still in the same
>>>> location or not anymore, but it seems like a good opportunity to talk
>>>> about it.
>>>
>>> Coenraad appeared as a "ghost" on the etherpad of our CNSIG panel (and
>>> I
>>> spotted him in the audience) but didn't see him afterwards and then he
>>> disappeared again :-)
>>>
>>> Whoever is interested on putting together an application on this topic,
>>> please contact me to organize a short meeting to see which are the
>>> options we have.
>>>
>>>> AFAIK, what he was able to do is exactly what you are proposing: to do
>>>> an assessment of existing similar solutions in an organized manner. I
>>>> haven't seen the results of his investigation on this matter, but it
>>>> should be the natural starting point. Also AFAIK the budget for that
>>>> project is considered on-hold too... so that could also be used to
>>>> bump
>>>> this project if correctly managed. I feel we left Coenraad too much on
>>>> his own and that led to the project goals not being met.
>>>>
>>>> Maybe joining efforts here can lead to a better result, after all
>>>> Cloudy
>>>> is a guifi.net initiative and well you are part of the MAZI project,
>>>> right? so... LibreServer + MAZI + Cloudy might be an interesting merge
>>>> of efforts which the CNSIG could spearhead if we can muster the will
>>>> to
>>>
>>> I agree!
>>>
>>>> do it :)
>>>
>>> So, anyone interested to reboot the Libreserver project with the
>>> objective to bring together current efforts (MAZI, netCommons,
>>> yunohost,
>>> framasoft, etc.) toward an easy to install "local app for CNs package"
>>> optimized for the librerouter setup?
>>>
>>>> Cheers!
>>>> Nico
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
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--
Dr. Sarbani Banerjee Belur
Senior Project Research Scientist
Program Manager
Gram Marg: Rural Broadband Project
Department of Electrical Engineering
IIT Bombay
Powai
Mumbai 400076
Mob: +91 9867282979
     +91 7045620077
Website: www.grammarg.in
Homepage: http://homepages.iitb.ac.in/~sarbanibelur/
Blog: sarbanibelur.blogspot.com

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