Organisational Support
Drawing on the work of the free/libre/open source software (FLOSS) movement we plan to provide progressive civil society organisations and activists with affordable and secure communication technology by:
- Purchasing bulk data and airtime at reduced rates by leveraging economies of scale;
- Facilitating reverse billing to enable free end-user access to video/audio conferencing and zero-rated websites;
- Providing secure open source cloud services including storage, private web browsing and hosted applications like online offices, video/audio conferencing, instant messaging, etc.
- Promoting the use of a range of secure open source software alternatives to the commercial products that currently dominate.
Capacity Development
An understanding of, and participation in the digital ecosystem must empower “end-users” into digital citizens. Training must accompany services, and cover not only consumer roles, but production, governance and the political economy of the internet.
We will develop and deliver a range of capacity building interventions to support people using our infrastructure and those developing community networks. Possible training interventions to be prioritised include:
- Basic use of online office (Nextcloud)
- Advanced use of online office (Nextcloud)
- Effective use on online meetings (Nextcloud Meet, Jitsi, Blue Button)
- Introduction to online security
- Advanced online security
- Network development & maintenance for community networks
- Using social media for campaigns and alliances
Each of these interventions would cover aspects of theory and practice. They will be designed using popular education methodology to locate learning in participants’ experience and include assignments and follow-up to support participants to integrate news skills into their activism.
We will develop the capacity to facilitate a range of participatory workshops and customised organisational development interventions aimed at facilitating a collective review of organisational communication culture and capacity, and the development of more effective communications.
Lastly we will offer responsive on-demand troubleshooting and coaching aimed at ensuring both a frustration-free user experience and the transfer of skills for self sustainability.