Dear all, (apologies for typos, I am writing fom a device with no corrector)
Yesterday, we had a very interesting and fruitful meeting at rightscon. Below a brief
recap of the ideas that emerged from the discussion.
General considerations:
First, it would be interesting to dedicate the 2018 DC3 outcome to a compilation of
exsiting toolkits (e.g. Mazi tooltik), instructions (e.g. Commotion), technologies (Libre
Router), etc. that allow people to concretely build community networks, rather than
elaborating another book.
Second, it would be good to dedicate part of the DC3 session to "let the unconnected
speak for themselves" i.e. bringing into the debate people that are currently
attempting to build CNs, to lat them share the difficulties they are facing and discuss
with DC3 members how to solve them. Nico Pace and Leandro pointed out that there are a lot
of commmunities that are attempting to build CNs that would be willing to share their
experience.
Third, it would be very interesting to dedicate part of the session to discussing
partnerships with stakeholders with whom we can establish unexplored cooperation. IFLA
(Donna was present at the meeting) was an obvious exemple but many others can be added to
the list (e.g. community radio, etc).
Lastly, (this point partly overlap with the previous one) it would be very interesting to
bring into the discussion and and establish cooperation with developers of technologies
that can be compelentary to the development of CN e.g. blockchain projetc (e.g. delife.io
which was presented by Jan who participated to the meeting), IoT solutions developers,
etc.
Important question:
Which format could be the best suited for a compilation of toolkits, etc? A specific
website? A webpage of the DC3 site? Something else?
Specific considerations:
It would be very challenging to discuss all the points mentioned above during the DC3
session (even if the 90 minutes slot has been reinstored, after many participants
complained about last year 60 min slot). Therefore it would be advisable to put forward a
workshop proposal, besides the DC3 session.
The session DC3 could have a structure along these lines
- presentation of (at least some of) the initiatives featured in the compilation/catalogue
of toolkits (40 min)
- discussion with people in their early phase of CN development to undertand the challeges
they are facing (30 min)
- discussion with potential partners (20 min)
The discussion/presentation of technologies and initiatives that can compelement CN
development is so broad that could be the object of a specific session.
Stavroula and Harris, from Mazi, kindly volunteered to take the lead to develop the
workshop proposal (deadline 27 May) for a collaborative workshop where such
initiatives/technologies can be presented.
Info on how to develop a workshop propsal can be found here
https://www.intgovforum.org/multilingual/content/igf-2018-call-for-workshop… (pay
particular attention to "workshop evaluations")
Here is the online form to submit the proposal
https://www.intgovforum.org/multilingual/content/igf-2018-workshop-proposal…
Here the list of the workshop approved last year to have some exemples
http://www.intgovforum.org/multilingual/content/igf-2017-workshops
Please feel free to share comments and add any info I may have forgotten or correct
anything I may have misreported
All the best
Luca