Proyectos archivo | Page 7 of 9

Community Networks as a Social Program

Colnodo provides communications services to Colombian and regional organizations to facilitate the sharing of information and experiences at the local, national and international levels using low-cost networks. Through its strategic programs, the organization has prioritized issues such as human rights, the improvement of conditions for women, governance, democracy and citizen participation, sustainable development, the democratization of knowledge, digital inclusion, and the strategic use of information and communication technologies for development.

They are currently working on the implementation of connectivity services through wireless mobile telephony and Internet networks in rural areas. They provide advice and support for the design, installation and maintenance of community networks and services, supporting the definition of strategies for their appropriation and sustainability.

With the support of the Frida Program, Colnodo seeks to:

Promote the development and approval of regulatory and programmatic proposals to strengthen the community network system in Colombia, considering, among others, the following aspects: social telecommunications programs, use of the spectrum, community operators, and spectrum sharing.
Specifying the process of implementing a community network in the rural area of the municipality of Maní Casanare, using TVWS technology. The model of quality broadband connections in different communities will be evaluated, considering the sustainability and appropriation of the network with a focus on gender.

This initiative is also supported by Rhizomatica, the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and the Internet Society, and it involves the active participation of the community.

Community Providers in Brazil

The great challenge for humanity —a challenge that involves governments, private actors, academia, civil society and society in general— is to connect the next billion individuals to the Internet, those whose access has been identified as a fundamental right, essential for the realization of their freedom of expression, association, access to information and other economic, social, cultural and environmental rights, as well as for meeting the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (resolution A /HRC/32/L.20 of the UN Human Rights Council, 2016).

Despite the above, many regions are still unable to access the Internet. Those installing infrastructure often ignore remote communities from which companies will not derive any commercial benefit.

In Brazil, many rural and urban communities have no Internet access at all. In certain communities in Amazonia, connecting to the Internet is the only way for people to communicate with the outside world, as they lack fixed telephony and postal services as well as any other conventional form of communication. In this sense, the digital divide adds to the pre-existing vulnerability of these communities, thus increasing economic and social inequalities.

In light of this situation, ARTIGO 19 has designed a project to support two communities and help them establish community Internet access providers for the purpose of promoting their digital inclusion and reducing the inequalities generated by the current divide. Based on a pilot that has already been implemented in some communities in Amazonia (Brazil), the initiative seeks to: organize activities and events in the different communities to present the model; plan and install the corresponding networks (donating the necessary equipment); train the population on the safe and secure use of the Internet, and influence regulatory frameworks for the establishment and development of community networks. The organization will also facilitate the creation of support networks comprised of technical experts and the participating communities themselves, who will be able to share their different experiences and optimize their use of the provider.

Promoting Careers in ICT Among Secondary School Teenagers in Uruguay

By articulating outreach and teaching activities, female teachers and students of the Institutes of Computer Sciences and Electrical Engineering at Universidad de la República have developed an initiative to bring aspects of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) closer to female secondary school students with the aim of encouraging them to pursue training in this area.

The project began in 2016 with activities aimed at groups of teenage girls in secondary and technical schools as well as spaces for reflection for the public in general that would help break down stereotypes about women and technology. The goal is for these adolescents to have the chance to meet and interact with engineers who are working as teachers and researchers in the field, following the role model approach. Under the motto “actions, not words,” the initiative organized robotics, programing, electronics, communications and geographic software workshops.

During its execution, the project has been able to verify the existence of a significant demand for this type of activities among both girls and educational institutions, who have shown great enthusiasm in continuing their participation. Six hundred Uruguayan adolescents aged 12 to 15 have participated in these activities. The program also included the development of training materials with various activities, user guides, conceptual presentations, as well as software and hardware kits. All of this has strengthened the institutional coordination between Universidad de la República and the country’s secondary education centers.

Future editions plan to extend the initiative by bringing on board mathematics, physics and chemistry teachers from some of the university’s other institutes. At the same time, a project called MATE (a Spanish acronym for Women in Science and Technology) is also underway and offers intensive one-week courses on robotics, programming, electrical circuits and mathematics at the School of Engineering during the summer and winter holidays (in addition to the workshops), applying the role model approach.

Mobile Lab for Developing STEM Skills Among Students and Graduates with a Degree in Childhood Education from Universidad del Magdalena

GINFED, the Spanish acronym used to refer to the research group working on the use of computer technologies for education, is planning to create a STEM lab for training students and women who have obtained their bachelor’s degree in Childhood Education from Universidad del Magdalena on the use of robotics applications (Scratch Jr, Scratch, and MBlock). The goal of the initiative is for graduates to incorporate knowledge of a programming language into their pedagogical practices, thus enriching their teaching abilities and providing them with the ability to use technology to create their own educational resources.

A mobile lab will be created that will be taken to different kindergartens in the department of Magdalena (Colombia), allowing teachers to replicate the knowledge they acquire and contribute their experiences so that more girls will decide to pursue training in technology.

The program focuses on preschool education, leveraging the opportunities offered by tools such as Scratch to encourage the development of STEM skills and abilities in children by creating fun, educational and rewarding classroom activities.

Editatona, Bridging the Gender Divide in Wikipedia

Editatona, a women’s editathon, was born at the end of 2014 with the aim of reducing the gender divide in Wikipedia. As many other technological projects, the online encyclopedia suffers from an unacceptable gender divide which is reflected in the number of collaborators (only 1 out of 10 wikipedians is a woman) as well as in the content created for Wikipedia – only 16% of all biographies available in Spanish on Wikipedia are women’s blogographies, and many articles have a sexist bias.

Based on an idea proposed by a group of female wikipedians working on Wikimedia Mexico (the Mexican Wikimedia chapter) and supported by several civil society organizations such as Luchadoras, Social Tic, Impetú and others, Editantona is an event exclusively for women that allows them to learn about Wikipedia and digital skills in general, within an environment free of prejudice and ridicule.

An edithathon is an event where participants edit, create and improve Wikipedia entries, using reliable and verifiable sources on a specific topic. It is a participatory activity that adds an in-person dimension to the voluntary online work of men and women which, in addition to helping the community socialize, increases its visibility in the eyes of the general public.

The first Editatona was held in January 2015 and was attended by a broad audience: 84 women registered for this event. Now that the event is international, more than 50 Editatonas have been held in different Latin American cities and have resulted in more than 200 new articles and more than 1,000 edited entries. A safe, friendly space has been created where women can participate without encountering any barriers.

Atalaya Sur. An Experience in Community Connectivity and Popular Appropriation of Technology

Since 2014, Atalaya Sur has been developing a proposal for the popular appropriation of technology in Villa 20 (Buenos Aires, Argentina), for which the association has been addressing three lines of work: the fight for the Internet as a right, the democratization of the production of content and discourse, and the promotion of technological vocations through ICT workshops in one of the largest informal low-income settlements in the city of Buenos Aires (a socially and economically vulnerable population of 30,000).

Just as there is a lack of basic services and proper infrastructure, there is also no possibility of subscribing to a legal Internet provider. Atalaya Sur has developed a free public WiFi network. This strategy represented a technical challenge because there were few precedents for this type of experience, as well as a challenge in terms of usability, as the goal was to transform the market’s prevailing consumer logic and replace it with a new logic based on participation, democratic communication and technical inquiry. Using fiber optic technology, the Internet was brought to Villa 20 from a residential complex located 1.5 km away from the settlement. The installation was implemented with point-to-point links with two towers installed within the settlement and 27 public access points, lighting the main streets and certain secondary roads on which community centers are located. These devices are installed in the houses of neighbors who support the installation and expansion of the network. While planning and installing the necessary infrastructure, training courses were offered to the community. This allowed consolidating a technical team consisting mainly of young people who monitor and provide support to the network. Likewise, the portal www.villa20.org.ar was developed to promote community participation in the construction of a public space for the sharing of information, opinions and cultural content. Along with the organization of audiovisual production and community communication workshops, this portal allows promoting inclusive access to digital resources and increasing the visibility of the neighborhood’s issues and experiences. These actions were complemented with technology workshops for all ages, with a focus on telecommunications, robotics, electronics and programming. Thus, the Atalaya Sur Network allows the community to organize itself based on a shared resource which is a tool for both communication and participation. The network currently allows 800 simultaneous connections and the portal receives 4,000 visitors each day.

Acoso.Online: Technologies to Combat Non-Consensual Pornography

Acoso.Online is the first Latin American website for victims of non-consensual pornography. It provides straightforward guidelines on how to deal with the platforms involved, as well as with the legal, judicial, organizational and security challenges related to this type of violence against women and LGBTQI individuals.

In June 2017, Acoso.Online was the first website launched in Latin America geared towards victims of non-consensual online pornography, offering recommendations based on five aspects that cut across politics, society and technology, with a strong feminist emphasis in its approach.

The initiative is based on a web application that offers a digital security strategy to prevent and reduce cyber-attacks and protect the information sent over the website. The tool focuses on the women who are its end users (victims) and seeks not only to provide support, but also to persuade these women not to abandon spaces for the realization of human, social and cultural rights such as the Internet.

The scale-up proposal consists of improving the technological component of the website and furthering the project in general to reach more victims throughout Latin America and the Caribbean in a more efficient manner. Specifically, the initiative seeks to:

Develop new technical tools that recognize victims’ need for personal and confidential communication. Design and program an encrypted chatbot, working together with experts from La Robota, to provide guidance through various platforms, including the Acoso.Online website. This will allow one-to-one communication in Spanish and Portuguese, using a smart interactive format.
Analyze and explore tools to facilitate the reporting of images and videos on different platforms as well as hashing tools in conjunction with other organizations that are part of the technology industry.

Schools Internet of Things (IoT) Weather Monitoring Stations

This IoT project involves the building a weather stations in local schools in Dominica and developing a web platform where meteorological data will be posted to and made free available.

Every school in Dominica receives Internet connectivity and most schools have an Internet lab. However, very little technological development results from the use of the lab and most school programs are focused on learning basic digital skills.

Additionally, Dominica is regularly exposed to natural disasters which make disaster management and climate change action essential to the development of this Caribbean island state.

This project aims to reduce the barriers for the adoption of technology in a small island developing state and to expose students and teachers to the benefits of the Internet on a national level.

The hardware required will include rasberry pi boards, arduino, adafruit data logging shield, reed switches, rasberry pi cameras, photoresitors and hall, temperature, humidity and pressure sensors. The software will be developed by leveraging open source solutions already available and would require developing knowledge in python, php, and web server technology as well as other Internet protocols. The software will allow for the recording of data locally and posting to the school’s website and also to a common website.

The system will be built by students and teachers, with the support of local technical volunteers. The process should also inspire and motivate them to continue the building process and seek out other IoT to work on.

Coding Rights – Women in Technology Award

Coding Rights is a group of Latin American women based in Brazil and dedicated to the promotion of fundamental rights in the digital world by integrating knowledge and use of technology and the arts in public policy and other processes.

Through three specific initiatives, the organization worked on promoting the critical use of digital technologies, including an understanding of data collection and consent from the user’s perspective, specifically that of women and members of the LGBTTQI community.

These include: (1) A platform for mapping the laws passed by the Brazilian Congress, which announces every new bill or modification to an existing piece of legislation involving digital rights and cyberfeminism (https://codingrights.gitlab.io/pls/). (2) The Chupadatos platform, through which the group conducted a number of investigations on data extractivism with technologies such as surveillance balloons, transportation cards and fertility applications (https://chupadados.codingrights.org/es). (3) The Safer Nudes zine, where the group collaborated with local artists to promote information and reflections on safe and consenting practices for sending nude images (https://www.codingrights.org/safernudes/).

The project is based on the assumption that Latin American women live in a context where digital technologies replicate and perpetuate power imbalances. Examples of digital surveillance and the massive use of apps in everyday life show that gender stereotypes continue to be promoted, that code is not neutral, and that a feminist perspective that addresses such issues is needed in this scenario.

Armonía: ICTs and Local Development from the Socio-Educational Perspective of Schools

The Armonía project creates digital education media in schools with the participation of the community, in order to contribute to local human development in rural communities.

The project was implemented in more than 20 communities in the Municipality of Segundo Frente, Santiago de Cuba Province. These communities rely mostly on agriculture, and primary schools and other higher-level education institutions are the only institutions that have the possibility of using ICTs.

The project worked on preparing an educational approach for integrating schools and their rural communities, mediated by an information technology culture. The goal of the project was to encourage the use of ICTs for local development, providing solutions to problems identified by the community and socialized among IT specialists, teachers/researchers and local residents.

Results included multimedia, websites and e-books on health, education, environment, local history, and other topics, that will hopefully contribute to human and professional development as well as to job opportunities for members of rural communities.

The Armonía project produced more than 190 digital education media items on various topics decided based on the needs and issues of the rural communities where the project was implemented. As part of the initiative, rural teachers conducted almost 200 scientific investigations in line with the project’s objectives as part of their Masters’ degree in education.