IGF 2023 – Day 0 – Event #84 Agents of inclusion: Community networks & media meet-up

>> NILS BROCK: Okay. Konnichiwa. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and welcome to our session, "Agents of Inclusion."  We are happy to see so many familiar faces here that found their way to Kyoto and also so many familiar faces online. Also, curious to know about the new faces that we can see here. And we are happy to have you here for our exciting session. And all those people gathered here, some of who suspended Saturday night activities to come to the sessions, others who got up really early. And yeah, soon we will hear more about the work and the proposals of community‑centered digital networks and media. But before this, just some quick words on housekeeping. Carlos.

>> Carlos BACA: Hi, everyone. Some of the common rules that we want to implement are, well, be respectful. We need to listen actively. Be respectful for others' participation, even when you disagree. Be collaborative. Recognise diversity. Respect privacy of participants. As for consent for photography, audiovisual recordings. Be aware of all language diversity and handle disagreement constructively. So, welcome, everyone. 

>> NILS BROCK: Thank you, Carlos. And now with our third facilitator, Sarbani, who will also present the team quickly. Sarbani, are you there online with us? I saw you earlier in the chat. Hello? Can you hear us? We cannot hear you, Sarbani. Hello? Yeah, we cannot hear you. Seems to be an audio problem.  So, please try to work on the microphone. I will continue, meanwhile, with the presentation. Yeah, now we can hear you. No, again not. There is something happening, maybe changing the device. Sarbani? Maybe raise your arm? Maybe you have to be ‑‑ that's the person who should be able to talk. No? Okay, I will just continue for a second, and hopefully, you can connect later with us. 

So, the session "Agents of Inclusion" will be facilitated by two persons, two in the room, the third one mute now, but maybe she will talk to us soon. So, our common interest was to shed light on the great work of community‑centered initiatives from different continents and we have brought together an amazing group of speakers.

First, Carlos Baca is sitting offer there. Carlos coordinates the training programme of ‑‑

(Talking at the same time)

Hello?

>> SARBANI BELUR: You can hear me now?

>> NILS BROCK: Yes, we can hear you. I did already the first part of your introduction, but you can still introduce Carlos. You can do better than I, I guess.

>> SARBANI BELUR: Hello, everyone. Yeah, so, this is Sarbani from India. Nice to meet all of you there. So, I'm here, and I would like to introduce Nils first. So, Nils is a journalist and media developer with focus on community media and community networks. And he has experience as a freelance journalist and a media activist in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. Nils works as a consultant for special projects for LockNet, member of the Innovation Gathering Network and coordinator of the open-source digital newsroom developed by DW Akademie and partners together with CSOs in the Global South.

And we welcome all of you to this session of ours and we look forward to quite an interactive session with all of you all. We have other speakers who are also online, and I'll introduce them one by one as the session goes. Over to you, Nils.

>> NILS BROCK: Thank you, Sarbani. And so, Daniela Belur holds a PhD in demography and MA in sociology and has learned and taught at many universities, too many to mention them all here. Her work involves increasing digital outreach to remote and rural areas of India, women, and the usage of connectivity, development of sustainable business models, seeding the growth of community networks, developing community technologies, meaningful usage and utilization of connectivity and many other exciting things.

And Carlos, so, could you please introduce yourself, because there was a mix‑up.

>> Carlos Baca: I am Carlos Baca. I come from Mexico. I work in Rhizomatica and organizations that work with Indigenous communities related with connectivity. And right now, I am coordinator of two training programmes, one for ICT network coordinators that will develop an agenda with ITU for Latin America and also the National Schools of Community Networks, inside of the local access network initiatives by Rhizomatica and APC.

>> NILS BROCK: Thank you, Carlos. And to get the session started, so, what is the session about here? So, in many places of the world, the creation of meaningful connectivity, digital content, and also inclusive technologies for Internet heavily rely on sometimes invisible collective efforts, and we want to make those collective efforts visible today, because worldwide, hundreds of community networks deliver access and content to underserved areas, especially in places where profit‑oriented access models are not sustainable.

In addition, we have community media, from which we will also know some of them today, media outlets that actively work on innovative digital formats to create more participation and integration with local communities. And finally, we have social enterprises and cooperatives that share the vision of community‑owned open technologies. So, our panel will highlight such great contributions, and we will hear again from Sarbani how this meet‑up is going to happen. 

>> SARBANI BELUR: So, this is a hybrid session, and participation might be a bit different for those online and onsite. We will try to switch always between the two perspectives to create a maximum of exchange that can take place. Since we have a long lineup of speakers, I also want to give space to interaction with the public contributions, like talks of five to seven minutes each. And in Q&A sessions and in the chat here in the Zoom link, there will be opportunities to further explore each topic. So, please, feel free to ask questions, put it up on the chat window of the Zoom link.

After our final Q&A session, we will also make time for a short planning exchange for all of you who would like to participate in the experience to organize a participatory coverage of the IGF, using one of the community‑centered technologies that we will learn more about in our presentations.  So, thanks.

>> NILS BROCK: Thank you, Sarbani. And now we will come to our first speaker, who has stayed up until late in Bolivia today, or is postponing dancing. She will tell us. Please welcome online Michelle Nogales. Michelle is one of the founders of Bolivia's first feminist online magazine called Muy Waso, and is a journalist with digital media for women's rights in journalism. And she was part of the first generation of the mentorship and Google News Initiative. With Muy Waso, she is exploring many digital media formats, and let's see what she has brought us today. Michelle, are you there?

>> MICHELLE NOGALES: Hi, Nils. Hi, everyone. Can you listen to me?

>> NILS BROCK: Yes, we can hear you. We cannot see you, but we can hear you. 

>> MICHELLE NOGALES: How about now? Hi! Great! Thanks, Nils. I can start speaking now, yes?

>> NILS BROCK: Yes. The floor is yours.

>> MICHELLE NOGALES: Thank you so much! Good evening, everyone. I'm really happy to be here with you, where right now I'm speaking from a small town in Bolivia, in the heart of South America. So, thank you so much for this opportunity. As I was introduced, I am the CEO and Co‑founder of Muy Waso, the first feminist digital native media in Bolivia. We were born in 2018 with a quest to break the old hegemonic narrative situation of media and tell what was not being told.

And we were born in this digital world, because in this space, we found an opportunity to talk about the problems, the solutions, and the needs of many women in Bolivia ‑‑ working women, Indigenous women, and people of sexual and gender diversity who work every day but whose stories weren't told, whose stories were not heard.

So, at Muy Waso, we work to make women the protagonists of their own stories, not only through this journalism that tells these stories, but also through journalism that is able to co‑create with our communities, with our readers, you know? And this year, we were able to produce a special article on gynecological violence that talks about some different experiences of women where we had the participation of almost 300 people, you know, that are part of our digital community. And these people shared their information with us on a topic which there is no open data available in Bolivia. So, we made a co‑creation of this article together with all these people.

And also, at Muy Waso, we seek to make this journalism and information very accessible to all, you know. We try to use language that is closed or to communities that is simple but is not simplistic and we have this as an unbreakable rule. And also, we seek to bring fruitful and very qualifying information and data that is understandable and attractive to our communities and has really interesting formats.

In this matter, you know, we also publish our third book this year ‑‑ well, actually, beginning of this year ‑‑ which is called "31 Legends of Bolivia" and it is interesting because this book looks to compile the tradition, and it's a co‑construction with people from the community who narrated these traditional stories and young artists and illustrators made drawings, more than 1,000 drawings, during October 2022, and spread this tradition in their social media. So, it was the stories from some people who other artists draw, and we just made an article about each story, and then we published a book. And this book went back again to the community. So, it's a whole collaborative production together, you know?

And in this project, also we saw this great, great impact that can be achieved through organized, collective action, you know? And also, this process helped us maintain a close relationship with our audiences, to identify their needs and how they generally generate an impact in our environment.

And also, in addition to using the Internet as a tool, we try to encourage free, feminist, and independent journalists, you know? We tried to share this learning and knowledge that we have gained during this time with members of our communities that live in rural or remote areas, you know. Actually, right now, I'm really, really far from my hometown because today I just came to do a workshop with some workers, with some harvesters really far from my hometown, you know, and we shared about how to use digital media, how to use digital tools to share their own needs and problems, you know? And in that matter, we're actually this year working on creating games or gamified training experience about media literacy to curb misinformation and hate speech in the run‑up to the 2025 elections here in Bolivia, presidential elections. So, we want to reduce the Internet usage gap which in Bolivia is very significant and widening every day. And we want with this, Bolivia's digital media ecosystem to grow and strengthen every day. We want the gap in –

(Zoom video freezing)

>> NILS BROCK: Sorry, you're breaking up a bit. I think we lost Michelle. The message came through ‑‑

>> MICHELLE NOGALES: I'm sorry, my Internet just got crazy. Am I back?

>> NILS BROCK: Yep, you're back now.

>> MICHELLE NOGALES: Thank you. I'm really sorry.  Can you hear me okay?

>> NILS BROCK: Yes. 

>> MICHELLE NOGALES: Yes? Okay.  Sorry.  Just, I'm really in a really small town. So, I was telling you that we wanted Bolivia's media ecosystem to grow and be more strong, and we also want to reduce this gap in access and use of technologies, you know. And we want many more women and sexual and gender diversities to be able to occupy the Internet and fill it with their needs, with their initiatives, and also with the diversity of languages and actions, you know, for there to be diverse ideas and voices that reflect the real needs of the communities themselves, you know.

And in this project, I was also working in Colmena, where Nils was coordinating a lot of things, and other people who is here in the talk, and we were trying also to gather a lot of different people whose work from their communities and sharing their own experiences through radio or through other audio formats that get together this idea of communities and to take the Internet and to be able to have more diversity of voices, covering up this gap we have in South America to access and use the Internet.

So, that's for my intervention. Thank you so much. I don't know if you have any questions and we can keep on talking in the chat. Thank you.

(Applause).

>> Carlos Baca: Thanks a lot, Michelle. So, our next speaker is James Gondwe, Executive Director of the Centre for Youth and Development in Malawi, and that organization is an organization that works with youth and children and related with digital inclusion matters. So, welcome, James. 

>> JAMES GONDWE: Thank you for the opportunity to be part and parcel of this panel. As rightly introduced, my name is James Gondwe and I'm the Director of the Centre for Youth Development. Our organization focuses on education, but we leverage on ICT and connectivity as well, and we've been exploring ways of how best we can increase access to connectivity and ensure that children, students have access to connectivity and they're able to effectively learn.

And one area that we recognise is quite a potential solution in addressing this challenge is community networks. And we did recognise that for us to be able to do that in Malawi, we needed to have a conducive policy involvement that would ensure that we are able to set up community networks or people are able to set up community networks. 

So, all along, Malawi has never had, you know, never recognised community networks as a solution, but also, they never had the framework, or accessing the greater framework that would actually ensure that community networks are developed. So, with the support of our partners, Association for Progressive Communications, but also World Association for Christian Communications, we did work on advocacy policy engagement with the regulator, but also Minister of Information, to make sure that Malawi as a country should be able to develop a conducive policy and greater involvement for the establishment of community networks.

Despite the fact that what we have at the moment, we would not say it is what we wanted to see, but I think there is some success because there is a framework that has been created, though not entirely to the way we would have desired it to be created, but there is a framework that has been created. And that would ensure that community networks, community initiatives, can actually be established in Malawi and that people can actually be connected.

So, my presentation is mostly focusing on sharing best practices around policy engagement. What did we do to make sure that we're able to get the regulator, but also get the Ministry of Information interested and get them listening, and eventually leading to the successful establishment of this policy and regulatory framework?

For us, a lot of people think that it is very obvious that regulators are aware that community networks are a solution, but it's not. We need to raise awareness. And for us as a country, as an organization, together with our partners, we started raising awareness. So, you start with the basics ‑‑ you raise awareness about community networks and get people to know what community networks are, and you know, you can do that by sharing examples of where this has been successful. And for us, we did have examples from within the region. So, using as an example, from South Africa, we also had (?) coming in as an example. And later on, Kenya came in as a very good example around policy, because Kenya had developed a framework. So, we were able to say, look at Kenya, what they developed. And for us as a country, we can also do something similar. So, that was a starting point. 

And so, as we are sharing these experiences around best practices, it is important for us to make sure that we're also providing evidence. So, the evidence is available within the country. We know we've got the rural communities that are not connected. And we know that ISPs are not going there because it's not profitable for them. They would rather stay in those communities. So, the conventional method of connecting is not working and we need to provide that as an example.

And then, another very important element that work for us is an element around collaboration, leveraging others. So, throughout our policy engagement, we leveraged on other institutions within the country. So, we leveraged on the university, University of Malawi, as organizations, as academic institutions that supported us with academic research, you know, and also did leverage on the IT Association of Malawi. The IT Association of Malawi has a huge membership of people in ICT, and we're able to leverage on their numbers to be able to convince the regulator, to be able to convince the Ministry of Information, to say, this is a solution. So, leveraging on others is another important strategy that we're able to use. 

And then, another element is in advocacy, it's difficult for you to organize the events on your own, you know. Policymakers, regulators, it's difficult for you to find them. Even booking a meeting with a regulator is difficult. But try to engage them through other events. So, we targeted the events that were happening within the country, and then we would be able to reach them, contact them while they were at those particular events. So, a good example is we've participated in a number of ICT expos organized within Malawi, and we know for sure that the Ministry of Information, but also others are available. And that is the point of engaging with those regulators.

Malawi hosted the IGF last year, and that was a great opportunity for us to engage with these duty bearers. And even the National IGF is another opportunity. So, try to leverage on what is already happening in your country and then build from there.

Another very important element is to try to build a network of allies. Try to see who else is interested in this topic. So, smaller ISPs is another very good example, so much as we might not be fully aligned with community networks, but I think those would be interested and would actually be a good ally. And then also other non‑profit entities within the country would be important.

So, we started building a database of allies from around 2019, and now we are even happy that that particular has developed into a community network alliance. So, Malawi has a community network alliance, and that particular alliance is now going to be looking at how best can we sustain the effort, the momentum that has already been created. So, it is the one that is actually now engaging with the regulator, engaging with the government, and getting them to talk, but also to see the successful implementation of the framework that has been created. So, my presentation focused on sharing those best practices. Thank you so much.

(Applause)

>> NILS BROCK: Thank you. Our next guest from India will be presented by Sarbani.

>> SARBANI BELUR: Yes.  So, our next speaker is Amudhan on how development can solve problems. He currently works with the social enterprise developing a local part for communities and their needs. Amudhan, let's hear from you now. Thanks.

>> AMUDHAN MANIVASAGAM: Hello, can you all hear me?

>> SARBANI BELUR: Yes.

>> AMUDHAN MANIVASAGAM: Thank you, Sarbani, for the introduction. Good morning, good evening, good day, everyone. It's nice to be here. I'm glad to be sharing all of our work with you today.  We are working towards implementing technology and building solutions to connect the Global South at Wakoma. Our efforts involve the deployment of open hardware and software, and we create open tools that enable anybody to build a network and adapt it and purpose fit them to their own needs. 

So, a lot of our work involves, you know, rapidly deployable networking equipment and hardware, but also software and firmware. So, to that end, I would like to share with you today a project that we call the Nimble. It's a device that encapsulates all of our efforts in these various different areas. The Nimble is an integration of open-source hardware, software, and firmware, and it's designed to be modular, customizable, and portable. So, let's start with the Nimble. It is essentially a series of three different mounts, and it houses hardware that is chosen to fit within a pelican case. And what this allows is for it to be taken anywhere and be rapidly deployable, and it's extremely portable.

And the designs for these shelves and these mounts are all open and anybody can download and print them for use, and they can modify them to fit their needs. Users can also design and share their own pieces, so if they have something that they want to put in the Nimble that we don't already have a mount for, they can design and share, give back to the community.

In addition to this, to make this hardware more accessible to everybody else, we're working on creating parametric designs that change the models dynamically based on the specific hardware that you've chosen, so you can much more easily customize it, and it makes it way more accessible for people to get started with.

And as part of this, it's also important to mention, as we integrate open hardware, software, and firmware in educational resources into this, it's also important to talk about other ecosystem projects that enable us. And when Nimble is deployed, we work with open firmware products. What this enables for us is, as part of when you build your own network, the communities are able to take any commodity hardware they have on hand and use that to build and deploy a network. And at the end of the day, we want to make building networks more accessible. So, the idea, if you bring your own hardware, software, your own networking, whatever you have on hand, whatever is available to you locally, and you put it together as the Nimble, and it helps you build a community network.

And once the network is up, we work on a software platform that we call Local, to add value to the network. So, once you have the network, what do you do with it, right? You need to ‑‑ you know, there is no point in just having a bunch of nodes connected; it has to serve a function. And to that end, we have Lokal. Lokal is a software platform that aggregates and enables, again, the rapid deployment of a suite of open source applications that can fit your needs.

So, this is a short basket of the applications that we can run on Lokal. And the nice thing about it is, you can hand‑pick any combination of these applications that best suit your needs and deploy them rapidly to one or many nodes all at once. And all of these applications can be run offline first. So, you can make calls. You can share educational resources. You can find a community forum, you know. You can create content and share it back to the community, all completely offline. And Lokal can be deployed on almost any commodity hardware. You can pick any computing resources that are available to you. It could be, you know, an old computer. It could be a little box. If your community has a lot of users, you can scale it up and down as needed, and it can be deployed on most hardware, and you can select the applications that best suit your needs, and you can also include specialty hardware to serve your specific application. 

And we're always working on adding and integrating newer and more open source projects into Lokal. So, if you have an application that you don't see in this list or on our website, chances are that we can probably integrate it and get it working in a short period of time. And much like the rest of the Nimble and the open firmware ecosystem, Lokal is also designed to be platform‑agnostic, so it runs ‑‑ it can be run independently of the Nimble. The Nimble is independent of Lokal, but they all connect to create this ecosystem that enables rapid deployment of networks, along with the local content and services. And this type of thing really shines in an offline‑first environment because it makes building networks for communities that much more accessible, right? When these components and the ability to deploy software, it kind of democratizes the thing so people can just come and get started much more quickly. 

And a great example of this would be the collaboration with Colmena, and Colmena, I think, has been mentioned a few times already in this series of talks. It's an offline‑first, decentralized platform that can be used to create and disseminate content in a community. People can just create, edit, mix, add text, create content right in Colmena and then disseminate it out to the community.

And as part of our collaboration with them, we made a customized nimble unit which has an audio interface, so you can create and you can take it out in the field. It's less than 100 watts. You can plug in a microphone and create content right there and disseminate it in a volatile situation. So, this is a great example of a nimble being customized, along with local integration, for a specific use case, and this would really enable offline‑first, volatile situation, you know. It's a great way to get out news media, for example. 

So, this is a nice overview of I think everyone we're working on. We're always open to collaborating, and we actually have a demo of this Colmena Nimble with Nils. So, for those of you that are on site, please, check it out. You should be able to see it. You can look for the lokal.network name, connect to it, explore the content and services, the platform, you can explore the software. And if you have any ideas and you'd like to collaborate with us, you can reach out to us. You can learn more about all of our various projects on the website. And, yeah, thank you for your time and your attention. It's a pleasure sharing. 

(Applause)

>> NILS BROCK: Thank you, Amudhan. Nimble is set up at the APC booth in the Global Village, so if you want to check it out the next days, it's always set up, and yeah, happy to meet you there also to show you some of the facilities.

But now, let's jump to Latin America, and we have someone invited here from Costa Rica, Kemly Camacho. Thanks for having made the long way to Japan. And with the permission of the Indigenous Women Association, Kemly will tell us a little more about social technology designed and maintained by indigenous women. Just a few words or would you like to present yourself, Kemly, as you wish?

>> KEMLY CAMACHO: Yes, very fast, because I prefer to take my time for the presentation. My name is Kemly Camacho. I'm from Costa Rica, and I am the Coordinator of Sula Batsu, a 20‑year‑old self‑managed enterprise from the social economy. And we have been working during now six years with the Association of Women to develop communication strategies, with technologies, but in a process of appropriation of the technology.

The slide that you are going to see is just for you to illustrate the work that we do in this place, because what I'm going to do is to tell you a story. I would like today to talk more about the transformation that a local communication strategy can make in women organizations. This is what I wanted to address more than talk about the technology. This time, I would like to talk about the transformation produced by this technology.

I want you to imagine that you are entering in a big, big mountain with no connection at all, no mobiles, and no electricity. And that takes myself 12 hours walking to arrive to (?) this place where we meet all together women from the Cabecar community. And also, I want you to imagine this community, each home is between eight hours to two days walking distance. Then we don't have a centre in this mountain where you have the home, where you have the houses. They are totally dispersed in the mountain. And then, you have to walk. And certainly, if something happened, you have to walk eight hours. In general, they send one of the kids from one house to the other to let them know that something is happening.

And what is happening, for instance, a woman is having a hard birth, for instance, or there is a bridge that fell down because of the river, or any other thing. But they needed eight hours to two days to communicate one home to the other.

We began to work with them. At the beginning, it was about creating a community network base and then in Internet protocols, but I'm not going to tell you all the story, but their decision were, no, no, we don't want that. What we want is to really have a technology to strengthen the communication inside the territory and to strengthen the communication between women, because we want to strengthen the women's organization. This is matrilineal community. Women are the leaders, and they inherit the land. Then for them to be organized is very important. 

I want to tell you the last story. This is a notarized story by them. I cannot tell the story without authorization. But two months ago, a leader drowned in the river ‑‑ drowned is a good word, yes? And the body was lost in the river. On another occasion, local authorities will come and look themselves ‑‑ Red Cross and police ‑‑ look themselves for the body. In this occasion, women, using the walkie‑talkie networks, organized themselves. And when the local authority came, they said, "We don't want you to look for the body because that is very important for us and that ceremony is very important for us. Then we are going to organize ourselves using the walkie‑talkie networks to go alone and organize the community to go alone and look for the body of our leader." 

And they did that. Yes, they did that and they used all along the river, they organized the way to try to find the body. When they found the body, also, because the authorities ask them ‑‑ they have to take the body to the morgue. They also said and organized themselves, all together, talking around the mountains with the walkie‑talkie network, talking around the mountains one to each other, how they are going to define what to do with the body, what to do with the morgue, what to do with local authorities, and how they can and want to do their dead ceremony as they want.

Then, I wanted to tell you this simple story, maybe, because it is really the result ‑‑ in another occasion, if we didn't have this strategy, communication strategy, based in the walkie‑talkie network, the only possibility is the local authorities came and took the body and do the occidental process instead of the Cabecar process for death. This is another example for how us, the most important is how we are strengthening ‑‑ we, together, the Association, women's association and us ‑‑ together we are developing and strengthening the community organizations led by women.

Other thing that we have done, and it's related with communication, is about building an infrastructure together. You can see there that this is (?) and we have just finished to build a (?). Those are spaces that we are building together with ‑‑ or they are building together, using all of the building practices, yes. And they are organizing themselves for having, for the first time, spaces to meet safe, for women to meet in safe conditions. Then, that is also a result of having a communication strategy.

Finally, I wanted to let you know that they began to develop what they call the Cabecar Women University, which is a place in this huarki and hutsani, they are creating this Cabecar Women University, where they are teaching agriculture, construction, health practices or health career, spirituality, and handicraft. These five programmes they have created using the second part of our project, which is okama sui, which is a platform that contains -- contains ‑‑ this is a bad word, right? I don't know how to say in English. But a platform where we are collecting all the wisdom of women in Cabecar language about this different wisdom in agriculture, construction, et cetera, and by the way of audio, videos, and drawing that young women and boys are doing using interviews to the older women.

Then, we have this platform, and we are using them to collect all this wisdom and to use in this training for the University of Cabecar women. Also, I want to let you know that they only speak Cabecar, then we are using a lot the drawing for agreements or for presenting ideas and for making decisions.  We are, of course, interpreters, young women interpreters, but we are using all these drawing as communication ways of work also. 

Finally, we begin in Halabeta ‑‑ you see this is our decision‑making process. We begin in Halabeta. Now we are expanding the process to other communities, other Cabecar communities. And also, in this next part of the project, we are integrating children to the process also. Then for now, this is what I wanted to share. Thank you. 

>> Carlos Baca: Thank you, Kemly. And thank you for this trip to go to Costa Rica and some of the feelings to be there, no?

So, the next speaker is Debora, a journalist and activist, with communication associated in the initiative led by APC and Rhizomatica. She is in Brazil and it is very late there, so she preferred to send us a video, and she has some great news about a gift for you. 

>> DEBORA PRADO: Hello, everyone. I'm Debora, I'm joining from Sao Paulo, Brazil today. I want to thank everyone here on site or online to make this conversation happening, and also for the organizers, the facilitators and IGF to make this space happen.  And I'm here today to talk about the podcast that we just launched this year. The podcast is named "Routing for Communities," and we have a motto that says, "This is a journey of raising connectivity around the world."

This podcast brings life stories of people that are connecting themselves while defending their fundamental rights and well‑being of their communities. This is a podcast produced by the Local Networks Initiative, an initiative led by the Association for Progressive Communications, APC, and Rhizomatica, in partnership with people, with support organizations, with grassroots communities in different parts of the world, especially in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean.

And working on the local networks initiatives through the years, we have witnessed a lot of inspiring stories of community‑centered connectivity, of community networks, of these kinds of initiatives that started bottom up. And we thought about the podcast as a way, as a channel, as a strategic communication tool, to share these voices and their stories and to bring their reflections to this dialogue, to the dialogue about the future of connectivity and the future of digital technology that we want.

So, more than anything, we believe this podcast is just an entry point to these voices and these stories that are really, really inspiring. I want to share a brief teaser of this podcast, of the teaser that we made, actually, to launch the first season now with you, just for us to listen to a few of those voices as an example and as, of course, an invitation for you to access our landing page, routingforcommunities.apc.org, to listen to these stories. They will bring different perspectives as the involvement of women, how access inequalities can be linked to other inequalities, gender, race and class inequalities. How can connectivity and digital technology, digital communication be mobilized to promote social and environmental justice, how Indigenous people, indigenous communities have been using them to preserve their language, their culture. So, a lot of different inspiring examples from different countries ‑‑ Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Mexico, Indonesia, Thailand, South Africa and more.

So, I will just play a bit, and with this make an invitation for you to listen to the stories and also to share them with people that are interested in this topic. 

>> Routing for Communities, an audio journey tracing community connectivity around the world. 

Hi, my name is (?) and I will follow you along this season where we are going to travel to different places ‑‑ South Africa, Mexico, Argentina, Kenya, Brazil, Indonesia, Nigeria, India, UK, Colombia.

>> (Non‑English language)

>> I was born in a place called (?) which is in South Africa.

>> I am originally from Philadelphia in the United States, and I've been in Mexico since about 2010.

>> (Non‑English language)

>> We will meet stories and voices that are intertwined, connected by a common thread ‑‑ building Internet and communication community networks. 

>> DEBORA PRADO: I will stop here, just to be mindful of the time, but this is an invitation. Please, we have also a Telegram channel if you want to join or visit our landing page, also in the main audio podcast platforms. I also want to thank the people that make this season happen. This was a collective work made by many hands, of course, by those that were generous enough to bring their voices and their stories, but also the work behind the scenes. So, here are some credits. And I want to thank you all for being here listening and for creating this space. And I'm looking forward to engage with you more. Thank you. 

(Applause)

>> NILS BROCK: Thank you, Debora. I don't know if you made it to the chat, and now Sarbani will announce our next speaker. 

>> SARBANI BELUR: Thank you, Nils. Thanks, Debora, for that nice presentation. And we would like to mention that we have key chains present in the room where you are there, as well as in the APC booth, with the scan ‑‑ you can scan the key chain and you can go directly into the podcast that Debora mentioned about. So, please feel free to collect the key chains from the table. Carlos Baca has it with him there in the room, and you can also collect it from the APC booth. Yeah?

So, over to the next speaker for today. The next speaker for today is Ellisha Heppner, and she joined APNIC Foundation in March 2023. She has more than 15 years professional experience in programme or project management and the design and delivery of complex projects, after working in the private sector, government, and not‑for‑profit sectors. She came to the foundation from the NGO sector, where she was responsible in driving the implementation of local, national, and international programmes in relation to improving education outcomes and literacy using a variety of international locations, including Asia and the Pacific.  So, over to you. The topic of her presentation is "Funding diverse connectivity initiatives in the Asia‑Pacific region." Over to you. 

>> ELLISHA HEPPNER: Hi.  Thank you for having me, everyone, this evening. Hopefully, my presentation will come up on the screen. There we go. Wonderful. I appreciate the time you're giving to me today. My previous project role I was doing closing the digital literacy divide with solutions, which was for primary school children doing digital solutions to rural and remote areas. So, I'm very interested in hearing some of the connectivity and discussions that everyone's bringing to the table today.

But I am here as the Grants Management Lead for the APNIC Foundation, and I wanted to just share some of the great work that we see that we're also funding through our foundation and share some of those stories and thoughts that come with that. 

So, how the Foundation works. The APNIC Foundation looks to fund predominantly through infrastructure, inclusion, and knowledge, with a goal to have an open, secure, and accessible Internet for all.  And we do that through technical training assistance, community development grants and awards, Internet infrastructure, and research and collaboration. So, we have a vision to have a global open, stable, and secure Internet that's affordable and accessible to the entire Asia‑Pacific community. We are predominantly focused in the 56 economies through the Asia‑Pacific region.

And the Foundation is made up of a variety of different initiatives, from foundation‑led projects specifically to foundation Asia awards and assistance. I predominantly look after the portfolio of the grants and community assistance programmes. 

I just wanted to share with you just a brief snapshot of some of those initiatives that are in play at the moment. We've got around 21 different infrastructure projects, 23 knowledge projects, and 24 inclusion projects under way at the moment. And over this period, there's over about 200 different initiatives that have been put through our 32 different economies. 

Some things to dive down on. These projects we've got at least six focused on Internet, and specifically, the environment. We've got a couple focused specifically on disability and inclusion. We've got eight that are looking to fill the connectivity gaps. And when I say "remote," we're talking those really remote, last, you know, areas.  Sorry, remote, providing those ones is ‑‑ we've got some Internet providers that are supporting through that.

We've got four projects really looking at alternative infrastructure solutions to make that kind of connectivity affordable. A couple of health projects. We've got some at the moment focused on forest fires and what that looks like for climate change. We've got many focused on social impact. We've got IPV6, which is infrastructure, and yes, ten on last mile connectivity and 13 around cyber and security.

I don't want to speak specifically about the projects. I've got Danesh here who is one of our recipients who works ‑‑ is manage ‑‑ well, is CEO and is presenting on his organization there. But I wanted to try and highlight the fact that we do fund and support collective efforts around community networks and what that looks like, and that can be really, really diverse. So, these are projects and project solutions that have been put forward to us for funding and support that range from, this year we've got Kacific Broadband, connecting 100 educational health facilities and ten countries through their solution.  AirJaldi is working in remote areas of India. CVISNET Foundation are looking at how to do small, stable broadband across those islands. We have a company with Distant Curve who is servicing remote rural Australia, that, you know, can cover vast distances. But we have very, very small population across those large distances. And I think this is trying to ‑‑ what I'd like to share and highlight is that there are a variety of different opportunities/solutions, based on context, and that we really support that kind of diversity of spectrum. And you know, we love to support initiatives, depending, you know, whatever they are, that are servicing the community and the community in need. 

I think the other thing that I've seen come through with projects that we like or that we look to support, and some of the conversation that I hear from our recipients is that power is also essential for community networks and connecting communities. So, as part of that, we do support, as well, initiatives that are looking at alternative power solutions to support that connectivity, ability to be able to provide effective connectivity for services.

So, an example there is, we've got a project called ME SOL, who is doing peer‑to‑peer solar microgrids in Rohingya refugee camps. SATSOL is in the Solomon Islands, which is a transportable tower that can be moved from site to site. Common Room also do community networks. They are understanding and support and look at alternative power solutions, knowing how important that is to maintain that connectivity. And we've got Palau National Communications Corporation, who are introducing and looking at hybrid solutions to ensure that there's sustainability through power and backup, so that connectivity can continue to occur. 

And lastly, I just wanted to share a few selections of our initiatives that are focused on environment and social impact. So, this is our inclusion and grants specifically. One of our grantees is here but not in the room. It's an organization called Similie, and they're looking at how the Internet and communications and connectivity can be used for climate change and water management.

We've got the International Research and Exchange Board. There we've funded Myanmar Book Aid and looked at language and preservation and what libraries meant in that location to be able to support community hubs. We've helped support ISEA and how building models and community networks and looking at those kinds of sustainable models through research and funding. And then Davao Medical School, connecting health care locations. 

So, that's essentially the diverse range of solutions that are coming to the table. And I just wanted to highlight how that has happened and how we support that through those kinds of public locations, looking at power supply, context‑specific solutions, leveraging for impact, and just, you know, really reflecting on that many projects are ill equipped with connectivity, and how do we make sure that we've got that before we do projects. Thank you. 

(Applause)

>> NILS BROCK: Thank you, Ellisha. And yeah, nice to see this from a funder perspective, and if there are other funders in the room thinking about how they can support bottom‑up connectivity and content production, I think you already gave some nice examples. And you also touched on an important topic that is solar energy and photovoltaic systems.

And our next speaker from Germany has, yeah, a long history of having worked on such and similar technologies. Some of you might have heard from her already. Elektra Wagenrad will be here with us. She's been developing wireless mesh technology for community networks and solar power systems in Germany, Bangladesh, India, Chile, Tanzania, South Africa. So, she has been around the world, wireless networking as she has published several books and articles on this.

She has also worked on the Freifunk community and has developed now already the third generation of the Freifunk Open MPPT, an open software/hardware solar controller. And she will tell us more about it now. Welcome, Elektra.

>> ELEKTRA WAGENRAD: Hello. I hope you can hear me.

>> NILS BROCK: Yes, we can.

>> ELEKTRA WAGENRAD: Excellent. Well, unfortunately, I cannot share the slides with you on the laptop, so I will try with the smartphone. 

>> NILS BROCK: That's fine, but we can see you and hear you clearly. 

>> ELEKTRA WAGENRAD: Oh, dear.  How do I get out of here? This is the first time I'm trying to do this on a smartphone.  Can you see my slides now?

>> NILS BROCK: No, unfortunately not. We can only see you. 

>> ELEKTRA WAGENRAD: Okay. So, I just have to go. Unfortunately, I can't show you the slides.  So, I'm a community member of the Freifunk Community Networking Initiative. And in 2017, I started to work for Freifunk on powering mesh from solar. So, I started to engineer and develop devices, solar controllers that you can build yourself and that you can programme yourself, because they're open hardware and open software, so it's open source hardware through and through.

And first devices were, like, small devices with, like, 50 watts of power from mobile mesh nodes or independent mesh nodes. From then on, people kept asking me if they could have more power. So, I increased the power and I increased the versatility of the devices. So, there is now three generations of these devices, two generations based on an ESP‑32 microcontroller and they support telemetry, they support extending it with other software. For example, I've made a prototype for APC that is for irrigation purposes. I have a prototype that is monitoring the environment, because the solar controller cannot just provide power for infrastructure; it can also be used for other purposes as well, so it's extendible for these purposes. Yeah, it's a bummer that I don't have my slides to show you. 

And one of the devices, an early prototype of the third generation, has been used in India, and it can also be used to serve power to the nimble project, for example. So, the latest device has a power of up to 400 watts peak from the solar system, and it's designed to work with batteries, but I'm also extending it probably to 24‑volt batteries. So far, I'm using AGM lead batteries, but I'm also testing other batteries. 

>> NILS BROCK: Elektra, we have found the slides. Do you want us to show them? We can show them now.

>> ELEKTRA WAGENRAD: That would be awesome.

>> NILS BROCK: Yeah. 

>> ELEKTRA WAGENRAD: I can't see them. Can you see them?

>> NILS BROCK: We can see them. The first one is the Freifunk‑OpenMPPT.

>> ELEKTRA WAGENRAD: Yeah, yeah. So, I have my slides here locally, so, yes.  That graphic is just illustrating the purpose that we wanted to look for in the first place, like two villages, and in the middle of nowhere, there is an opportunity to overcome an obstacle. Then the idea is to autonomously power a wireless relay in a mesh network so the villages can be connected. Can you go to slide 2?

That's on ‑‑ on the picture on the left side, you see one of the first users. It's a mobile pole with solar power and battery, which is integrating a mesh potato use lectern and a solar panel and the solar charge controller. And on the right‑hand, you see the app that can be used to monitor the device. It will also give you hints if something is wrong.  Please go to slide 3. 

Here you see the modules that basically such a system is consisting of. Just step over to slide 4.  Yeah, just a schematic, a block diagram showing the use in India. Here the device was used to power a centre. The 400‑watt device from the OpenMPPT was powering that connection. Slide 5, please.

So, this is a current prototype of the 400‑watt version. And I'm going to start production this year.  Slide number 6, please.  Yeah, some pictures from the field, from the deployment in Anthill. The left picture is when they prepared it, and the right‑hand picture shows the installation. I have to mention that this installation gave problems because the batteries and the device were overheating because they were exposed in a metal box to the blazing sun, which was not how I intended it to be used. Slide number 7, please. Next one. 

Yeah, I started to print housings for it, and this is the device that you can use in an environment where it's not on a remote place. For example, if you use it locally. It's a printed housing, and I did the display. Slide number 8.

And here you can see the OSPIT ‑‑ open solar powered irrigation tool -- the prototype I built based on the device. And I have an idea to make a PCB for that as well, because I have the feeling that many people will be looking for such a solution.

And last slide is just a thanks to the contributors, to people that helped me with the funding. Thank you very much. 

(Applause)

>> NILS BROCK: Carlos?

>> Carlos Baca: Our next speaker is Mwendwa Kivuva from Kenya, and he is one of the board members of the KictaNet. It is the Kenyan ICT Action Network. And he is also one of the developers of the Angaza Community Networks in Nairobi. 

>> MWENDWA KIVUVA: Okay. Thank you so much for the introduction. So, my name is Mwendwa Kivuva from KictaNet. And I have some slides to share, so probably can be unable to do that. So, probably I can give you a small brief of the Kenyan situation, is that ‑‑ host disabled screen sharing. Probably you can enable it? Kenya is a licensing framework, and to get a license for community network, you pay around $50. So, it's a very affordable license that we have. And this was made possible through some collaboration through APC, Rhizomatica, Communication of Kenya and UK Aid. And this is the one Malawi is referring to that many other African countries are looking to adopt. And recently, the regulatory in Kenya started cracking the whip on unlicensed wireless service providers, so they're being shut down by the regulator. So, many of them are now starting to get these licenses.  Okay. Thank you.  Okay, I'll share the screen.

So, and also, Kenya's formed community networks with over 15 members belonging to that association, and they are able to lure government and big players effectively because now the association has more members and they have numbers to be able to talk to the regulator. 

Some of the many challenges, of course, we are facing within our situation, power is a big challenge. We have had some speakers talk about power. For example, this is the Angaza Community Network that we are running in Mathare Valley, and this is the situation on the ground ‑‑ very many tiny shacks, tin roof houses. And most of the location is not covered by a power grid. And the power grid that is there within the location, most of them is actually illegally tapped. So, the power usually fluctuates by spikes, and these spikes ban most of the adapters for the access points that we have within the valley.  So, unreliable power is one of the big challenges that we are facing as a network. 

Within the network, we have four points of presence ‑‑ POPs ‑‑ that we have set up. And the different POPs are the ones which communicate to the access points that are on the ground. And one challenge, like this network faced, is that some of the ‑‑ there is usually vandalism of equipment. So, if you don't secure your site very well, probably you have tight security, razor wires and all that. You find the equipment gets stolen. So, I think this is a challenge, either for many community networks, or probably some is competitors vandalizing, and some is just people looking to sell the equipment for money.

Another challenge, we have seen many community networks face is backhaul, because, like for this situation, 100 bps backhaul cost around $1,000 a month. Meaning 1 gig of backhaul will cost around $10,000 per month. And how as we are trying to cover the cost of backhaul is to talk to government, because government have excess backhaul. Like Kenya, the territory of Kenya which provides Internet to government sites, and they're free backhaul after just lying around. So, one of the things we're doing is telling them, if there is a fibre passing near our network or other community networks, why don't you give them that backhaul so that they can be able to serve the members of the community with that Internet?

And in Kenya, there is an initiative to provide ‑‑ to have 25,000 access points within the country, and that's a government initiative. So, in collaboration with community networks, they can be able to achieve that target, if the government provides backhaul, community networks provide the access points and the community, but to manage it, they can try to achieve that number at very lower cost. So, that's something we are advocating, and we are talking to the ministry and the relevant government agencies to be able to support that.

Within our network, we have several trained engineers who have been going through the schools of community networks so that they can be able to manage this network from the site. 

And one challenge, of course, is when we train these engineers ‑‑ and they are very good ‑‑ they get poached, or they go to larger, bigger organizations, so they go to the bigger ISPs because probably there is much salaries. So, we actually say that we are building capacity for the nation, because you build capacity where people are able to manage these networks, then they go to work for the bigger ISPs, but of course we have already built the community and built the resource for the nation, so we don't mind that so much when it happens.

So, one of the wins ‑‑ on our POPs, you can see like the solar ‑‑ this is solar panels within our POPs. And these solar panels are the ones that are powering the mass. But now at the village level, we have access points that we have mounted on top of residence houses, and we are not able to power all of these devices with solar. We have around 250 devices so that they can be able to supply Wi‑Fi across the village. And these are the devices that we have a problem with power because they get bent out. So, probably the solution that we have discussed here, probably some of them we can try to adopt and apply within our network.

Some of the quick wins we have had with this project is support from APC and World Organization for Christian Communicators. They have been able to provide a small funding to pay community people who are managing the network for us and maybe even support part of backhaul and this small administrative cost. And one of the other quick wins is collaboration with government and ministry and Communications Authority, so our regulatory in Kenya is very engaging and very available, so it's actually possible to have the regulator be part of your team. Actually, most of the equipment that we have not yet deployed, the regulator is the one who is storing the equipment for us.

And we hope this programme can be able to support the government agenda for providing nodes across the country.  We know that free city‑wide or slam intelligence is actually possible. Even here in Kyoto, you go on the streets, there is free Wi‑Fi with collaboration of the municipalities. And even if you go to New York, there is free Internet provided by New York City, New York City Wi‑Fi. So, this these models actually work and they can also work for informal settlement, who can actually help to give Internet.

We are targeting to have 20,000 unique monthly users by mid‑2024 with this network. Thank you so much. 

(Applause)

>> NILS BROCK: Thank you very much. And yeah, we see that solar energy is very important for bottom‑up connectivity, and I think we can also see the linkages between the policy work that James mentioned before and how it can create conditions to make those networks grow. And now, let's go back to India to hear a bit more about the work of community networks and also community media, especially community radios, and someone who can tell us more about it is our colleague, Sarbani. Please.

>> SARBANI BELUR: Yeah. Hello, everyone. I'll just present my slides.  Hope you all can see my slides. 

>> NILS BROCK: Yes, we can.

>> SARBANI BELUR: Okay.  Yeah. So, I'm going to speak about the varied uses of community media by women in community networks. And this is something I wear two hats at the present moment. I am a Fellow of ISEA ‑‑ that is Institute for Social Entrepreneurship in Asia, and I'm also the Asia Regional Coordinator of the LOCNET project at APC.

So, all of you all must be knowing about what is community networks or the community‑centered connectivity in regions where there is no connectivity or low connectivity. We try to set up networks that are seated by the community for the community. And in these networks, women's role ‑‑ it plays an important role. Women play an important role. Women play an important role in setting up these networks.

One of the things that is very important to understand is that in these networks, women actually play a role of decision‑making, of setting up the network. Like, for example, they will think they have to contribute to the decision process of making the network, online network or an offline network, based on various other criteria, which I'll tell you a little bit later. And I think women's role also is that they contribute to a better and equitable network, because women try to put up the access points in locations where women usually visit, like the schools or the well, where they draw water, unlike the others. So it's a more equitable network.

And an understanding of women's capability to use the network, you know? So, here, they use quite a lot of frugal technologies, that are technologies that are, like, just a smartphone without any connectivity but with using the audio recording feature of the smartphone. And it is towards developing enterprises and social entrepreneurs.

So, in India, we do have quite a lot of community radio in Asia, and I'll tell you exams. Servelots, the organizations that's in the room. Servelots is one of the organizations and APC member who has set up a community radio and offline community radio for the community, and they are actually ‑‑ they have actually set an example, you know, and we have followed it for various other community networks. And this is an offline radio that is set up in the community for sharing information within the community.

ASORCOM in Myanmar that is no longer there had Heisha FM, a community radio that was specifically set up for the community and related to all ‑‑ it's related to all the information that the community had, and it is closed down now because of the political coup there.

Then, the Pathardi Community Network also has used community radio, and it collects information on biodiversity, and it is also an offline network, offline radio.

So, what happens is that in these networks, why community radio is used is that it brings the community together. And if you look at the left‑hand side, it actually suggests that it brings the community together, this type of media. It brings the community together, and the user is always the user of frugal technologies that are used, like just a mic that is used or a mobile phone with an audio recording facility. So, it is a very simple type of technology that is used, and it also brings a platform for the people, for the community to discuss various issues, which is not ‑‑ which Internet, you can just plug on to the Internet and you can be connected to the outside world.

But the knowledge that is there within the community, it really requires some of the knowledge can be recirculated within the community. Sometimes a community doesn't know it. This indigenous knowledge‑sharing is sort of used quite a lot through the use of the community radio. And we have examples of indigenous knowledge, like arts and craft forms which the community doesn't want to go into the Internet, and it should remain within the community and get enhanced by the contribution from the people in the community, and this happens within the community radio space, the platform that it provides.

So, I'll just give you an example of a network, an offline network diagram, mesh network diagram, which is here. And you can see how the radio is used, how the information, various types of information is collected by the community in an offline setting, and it attributes the community knowledge. What happens to complement is that women find self‑expression through community radio. You know, otherwise, they don't have ‑‑ their voices are never heard in the online medium, and it sort of gets diluted. But in the community radio space, women find self‑expression. They can speak. They can speak for themselves. And the community support is also there. The local community, linking up the local community to the outside world, and as you can see, preserving indigenous knowledge.

In one of the networks that we are going to set up very soon now, we are going to use a combination of nimble and Colmena for setting up a network for preserving languages in a tribe in a remote part of India where the language is totally getting eroded. It's not there anymore. They don't have a repository of its own, so we are setting it up over there.

And the community contribution to the knowledge, because it is going to be only through this community radio, which is, again, going to be an offline network that we are going to set up. And what happens is, through this type of community media, what happens is that women who are perceived to be not having digital literacy are not having devices, so they can adapt themselves to technologies that are very frugal and simple to use. That's it for me. Thank you.

(Applause)

>> NILS BROCK: Thank you, Sarbani. And note to our next speaker, I already wrote in the chat, if you have questions, we will get to all our questions, answered on quickly. It has been many presentations, but yeah, I think very interesting insights, and two more coming.  So, now we will have Erick Huerta from REDES Mexico and also from Rhizomatica, and he will tell us a little bit about the work, interesting work they're doing in Mexico. 

>> ERICK HUERTA: Hello. Hello. Well, thanks for all the experiences that have been presented, such inspiring and interesting. And, well, it's good to hear that we share home towns common problems, no? When we talk about electricity, when we talk about the access. And, well, I love all the presentations, but especially I like the one on the Cabecar women, because it reminds us a lot the context that we also work with indigenous communities.

Well, I'm going to tell you the story, our own story, about what is happening now. 12 years ago, more or less, or ten years ago, we started a mobile network, a community mobile network for indigenous communities. So, that was ‑‑ that moment was a hit, because it was the first time a community, Indigenous community got access to spectrum for mobile services.

And then, well, we started 2G services in indigenous communities from Mexico, in the area of Oaxaca. But, well, it has been ten years since that, and things have changed a lot, and also, technology has changed a lot, and we have new challenges and also new opportunities with this.

So, especially after the pandemic, we have seen an increase of the ‑‑ the expansion of big operators in Mexico. So, in some of the communities that we used to provide ‑‑ well, the communities used to provide service for themselves. Some big operators started coming in, too. And that, well, it's difficult to compete with them because these local networks have any specific type of numbering, so they don't use the same numbering for, like, the other communities, and some people switch them because we are not a national network.

So, one of the things for us was to see, how shall we do? Are we going to continue with this project, or we don't know. So, the first thing that we did was to, as every year, all the communities met together, and we explained the situation, how it was going, and they decided to continue. They say, "We're going to continue with the networks."  But each time, we have to move the local networks to the smallest communities, so that affects sustainability of the network because the big communities sustain the small communities. But if all of them are small, well, then that's a problem.

And the other option was also to create a mobile operator so that the communities don't lose what they already have, a share within the cause that were done in the community. So, we create this mobile virtual operator, and we continue with building infrastructure within small communities. But this thing of the mobile virtual operator also brings us new opportunities as well.

When we started these networks, we were so excited because we think that we could do a lot of side projects regarding to content creation, local economic development, and that. But the real thing was that most of the time and energy of keeping sustaining the networks, in attending the services and ensuring that the network was more reliable and so on, so we have less time to work on these side projects. So, the mobile virtual operator brings us these opportunities.

And also, then this mobile virtual operator has ‑‑ it is not just about providing service, but also to support content creation for the communities and also local project exchange.

I would just quickly tell about two of these experiences that are there. One is from a community that says, well, we have our mobile operator now, we provide service to the community, but we would like to have local information centre for our communities. And that's why I referred to these local networks, because for instance, this community has run a long history fighting against the mining in their communities, no? So, they want to share this experience to the new generation so that they continue to remain strong against the ambition of the lands and so on. So, we are working with them, creating ‑‑ well, started this project create this facility so they can have their local maps, their local information centre, to provide this in a local network.  So, this has been an important change, no? It's not just about now that we don't have to sustain infrastructure, we can engage in different projects that can develop local content using the resources that comes from the virtual operator.

And the other is they strengthen local economies, no? So, the model that we use within the mobile virtual operator is kind of a service ‑‑ is kind of a local savings group, no, like a local savings group. So, this other story is a local university, a community university, and it's just mainly a university, so they have a special area for communications. They are about six to seven students, small, students, and they decided to create this group to become mobile reseller, no, from the mobile operator.

So, it was interesting, because they have saved some money for some production that they did, and then from there, they started this. And with that money, well, it was very successful for them because at that place was the only operator.  It was very successful because it was the only operator. There was a lot of money started into the income, and now they have become a ‑‑ they are now funding themselves to support the acquisition of the computers, their own mobiles and so on. So, I mean, that's what I wanted to share, this change from the local network to a virtual operator. That moves into some different areas of the self‑sustainability of the community. So, that was all. 

(Applause)

>> NILS BROCK: Thank you. We have to watch the time because we still have one speaker, Risper Arosa online, and she is CEO from TandaNET.  Some of them might know you. She will tell you quickly about a project we heard mentioned already a couple of times, Colmena, where several organizations represented here today are involved. It's like a common effort for an open‑source software. And yes, Risper will tell us more about it. And thank you for your patience, Risper. The floor is yours now.

>> RISPER arose: Thank you. Thank you so much, Nils.  Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everyone.  I'm glad to be part of this conversation, and just to commend the great presentations that I've heard from the different speakers, a lot can resonate because we also have a community network and also, we worked with Colmena, so a lot of synergy also from the conversation from the different speakers that have presented. So, I'll just share my screen.  I hope you can see my screen. 

>> NILS BROCK: It's still loading. Yes, now we can see it.

>> RISPER arose: Yes. So, briefly, I'll talk about our work, what we do in Kenya. And mostly, it's just in addition to what the previous speaker, Mwendwa Kivuva, has spoken about, painting a picture on the landscape of community networks in Kenya. And now, I will talk about a community network based in the informal settlements of Nairobi, that is called TandaNET, where I work. 

Yeah, so, TandaNET is a community network dedicated to creating a digital ecosystem that combats digital inequalities within marginalized grassroots communities. And we also do this through a multifaceted approach, where we provide affordable Internet access, enhanced digital literacy, develop digital platforms, and also collaboratively create locally relevant content with the community.

From the picture that you can see there how the landscape is. Something very similar to also what was shared with the previous speaker. Kibera has 13 villages, and the number of residents is not determined but ranges between 170,000 to 1 million people. And with the COVID‑19 pandemic, there was a lot that was highlighted, especially around the ongoing problem, the very many low‑income communities lack reliable or affordable access to connectivity, and hence, they were being left further behind, since most of the services are moving online.

And there are mobile Internet providers that offer affordable data packages in the community. The problem is just that it's not very reliable or very feasible, and also, the quality of the mobile Internet can be poor at some times because of poor infrastructure. Yeah.

So, what you can see also is the mast. It is located in our offices, and our offices is at one of the community schools. That is where we are located. 

So, our programmes, our work revolves in two folds. So, as I mentioned, we have the bit around access, providing affordable access. And here, currently, we have connected 60 centres in nine villages out of the 13 villages in Kibera, and our goal is in the near future to reach to connect the 13 villages in Kibera. And also, we provide Internet connectivity to community schools, CBOs, NGOs, community hospitals, community businesses, youth and women groups. Initially, it was more around organized groups that we were engaging with, but starting this year, we have started connecting homes and individuals. 

Our path to sustainability. We have paying clients, where the first is we offer public hotspot Internet access for communities for as low as $0.5 a day. Also, we provide fixed Internet services to the community centres that I mentioned at the rate of $15 a month. And with this, they get unlimited Internet speed of up to 40 Mbps per month. And out of the 60 connected centres, 41 are making regular payments, and the rest are not. But the beauty about community networks is the co‑creation process, so figuring out with the community who cannot be able to pay for the Internet who avenues would make sense for them so that they keep connecting, regardless of that state. So, really looking at the idea around anchor clients who can pay for the Internet in terms of the standard rate that can then support our clients or the community who are not able to make regular payments. 

Also, we offer network trainings to the communities, and these trainings are designed to educate the centres with basic skills around networking concepts, networking management, troubleshooting, and security practices, so that in case the Internet is down and there is something that needs to happen at the centre level, then the community that you've connected are able to do that. Yes. 

So, beyond Kibera, our work also looks at ‑‑ sorry. Beyond Kibera, our work also looks at ‑‑ sorry, just give me a minute.  Our work also looks at training and mentorship programme, where we have trained over 200 individuals from 11 community networks in Kenya. Those are organizations that either imagined community networks or already established community networks on what it takes to design, deploy, operate, and sustain a community network. And this is a project also that was supported by APC called "Supporting Community‑led Approaches" and the local community initiative.

Beyond the Internet access, we also do a lot of activities around capacity‑building the community. So, we engage the community through human‑centered design to focus on what their needs assessment is. And then through that, design trainings that will then support them in meaningful access of this technology. We also look at diversity, so looking at from these centres that we have connected, how are women relating to the technology and how men are relating to the technology, and if there is any extra efforts that needs to be made for a certain group to be able to meaningfully access the technology, then we create and we co‑create with them some of these capacity‑building efforts.

Also, with this, just promoting ownership and control by the community, and this we do through local content creations and platforms where we encourage the community to not just be creators of digital content, but also to be ‑‑ not just to be consumers, but also to be creators of this content. So, we do, after the trainings, we think through sort of podcasts we can create so that it can be accessed by the general community, beyond the connected centres that we engage in this training.

We've also created comic strips, videos, just to showcase some of the work and amplify the voices of these community centres that we are connecting, and also the role of Internet in amplifying their work. 

Also, we have created knowledge management platforms which comprises e‑learning platforms and also school management platforms. In 2021, we introduced Colmena to the community network as a tool for local content creation and sharing.

So, here, I'll just talk briefly about Colmena. So, after connectivity, community members need locally relevant content, and that is where Colmena comes in, where we have worked in three phases. In the first phase is when we first interacted with the platform, and we did use experience in the user interface testing with the community medias just to understand, what are some of the gaps that they are facing as community medias, and how is Colmena a tool that can be able to address those gaps. And from that, the platform was ‑‑ we got really good feedback that went ahead to contextualize the platform.

And also, we've done workshops on creating ‑‑ workshops on creating awareness of Colmena, where we've invited the community media and community networks that we worked with in Kenya to just understand what Colmena is and see how it applies best to their work. And currently, we are on the hard face and looking into localizing and contextualizing the tool by create an instance of the tool that would be locally hosted in TandaNET that is based in Kenya. So, looking at that, seeing how the tool can then be ‑‑ can solve with its future that is online ‑‑ online or offline ‑‑ and be able to really contextualize this engagement that would be ongoing at the community level. Those are what we are doing with the platform, Colmena.

And of course, just benefitting from the cost‑efficient and affordable solutions that it has to the grassroots community; also, the fact that it addresses the need for more urgency on the community level to ensure an interactive, safe, and secure access for the information, and also improve the local collective ownership at the last mile level; and lastly, just to build or contribute to the resilient, decentralized infrastructure through the ownership of the community.

I don't know how I'm doing with time. I don't think I'll have time to go through my last slide. Nils?

>> NILS BROCK: Yes, very quickly.  We have five minutes left on the session.  Then we have to wrap up. 

>> RISPER arose: Yes. Yeah, thank you so much for this opportunity. Just key areas that from our reflections we thought that needs a lot of attention. Number one, co‑creation, especially with the community needs time, especially when you're introducing platforms, when you're introducing local content, when you're introducing the colonization of this content. It needs time and it needs patience with the community.

Also, there is a need to join forces with like‑minded individuals and organizations in aligning capabilities and sharing resources in order to promote digital inclusion.  And lastly, we need to actively participate in evaluating some of this digital inclusion efforts, considering the gender, different race, others at the grassroots level and also to participate in such spaces to strengthen the resilient digital infrastructure and community participation. 

So, thank you so much, even to our supporters, and yeah, looking forward to.

(Applause)

>> NILS BROCK: Thank you, Risper. And yes, it was a big lineup of speakers, so it took almost all the two hours, but interesting insights. I think this room, there won't be much time now for questions. I don't know if there's anyone who has one. Oh, okay, over there. Then I would say, also, let's take the time later at the gala or at the booth in the village to continue our dialogues.

>> AUDIENCE: Thank you. It was interesting. I have one question. I don't know who wants to answer it. So, we have more layers than the network layer or the technical layer. We have also the regulation layer, we have the content layer, the administration, and the whole conference is talking about disinformation and how do you distinguish between these layers and how do you make sure that your networks that you are building not in the end being misused and the number of users and active users are growing? So, what measures do you have in place for that?

>> RISPER AROSE: Let me add one more layer, which is, who are left out when we're participating, you know? Community's participating, but who are left out? Coming from the point of low literacy. How do they engage and become part of the content creation process or content engagement?

>> NILS BROCK: Any takers for those questions?

>> AUDIENCE: Okay, this was a question to Mwendwa and probably Risper. We are talking about network in the informal settlements. And I wanted to know the level of the quality of the Internet provided by these communities, but also in terms of connectivity, I wanted to understand, like once an installation has been done to a house or a unit, what is the consistency in terms of paying the subscription by the specific houses so that we get to understand. Is it affordable to them? What is your feeling about them paying? Or what is your feeling about the consistency of using the Internet provided to this household? And that will also inform, when you're talking about accessible and affordable and available Internet, what does that mean, looking at the context of the communities we are targeting?

And the question on the quality of the Internet. We've heard experience where Internet quality works in the middle of the night. What is the experience of that? Thank you. 

>> NILS BROCK: Okay. Any takers for the questions? We can maybe start over there, then everyone has a quick final say. 

>> ERICK HUERTA: Just maybe talk about the layers. The more sophisticated the network, the more layers you have to attend, no? And I think we have to think about the small economies or the economies for subsistence economies, how do they work. And they work collectively. You won't make it if you think just in one self or in just one person.

So, the first thing we did when we started was to look around who were working on these different areas, and then discover who was better for doing what and what's better for doing things. And I think that's the case of LockNet. That's how LockNet was born, after meeting together and thinking about all of these different layers and how we attend. There were people that was more experienced in regulation, who has more experience in technology and that. And so, with that, we have been organizing as a network to help us to prevent and subsist within these small networks because trying to attend everything within one network would be impossible.

>> DEBORA PRADO: And this is not a written culture at all. They don't have a written, only in the university they have tried to create the written for the ‑‑ but it is not written at all. Then the platform that we use is only audio and image, okay? We don't use writing at all because it is not part of the culture. And also, we use a lot of drawing. Drawing is something very crucial for this interaction, especially because I don't speak Cabecar and they don't speak Spanish, yes? And we have the interpreter, which is the younger women, yes, that speak both, but we communicate a lot using drawing.  Then those are the strategies that we have used. But we use a lot of recording, video, images, drawing, photos, yes. And with that, we have created the platform of wisdom of the Gwen, the Kabaka women.

>> NILS BROCK: Thank you. I'm really sorry, but I was just informed that we've run out of time. The last question, we will have to take it outside, if we can do. Would you help to answer it later, James and Kivuva? Thank you. For those of you still around who want to know about Colmena, the content creation software that we saw, we will test it here during the event. Anyone who wants to have like an account and also to help for participatory coverage, you will find me at the APC booth. And then, yeah, let's talk about it and create some content together.

And thank you all, all who were there online, onsite, who contributed to this session. I think it was a really nice insight into all the interesting work done. And yeah, let's take advantage of the next four days here to inform more about the work done by and for communities, networks, and media and engage in the discussions and make this our IGF. Thank you very much.