Beyond the Net Program > Beyond the Net Program Grants
Beyond the Net Program Grants
The Internet Changes Everything
As of February 2019, Beyond the Net Funding Program is part of the Internet Society Foundation’s grant portfolio. For more information on the latest grants, visit our Foundation website.
Pre-2019 Beyond the Net Program Grants
2018 Grants
Botswana Chapter: Empowering Village Development Committee Leaders
In Botswana, Village Development Committees (VDCs), are “the main institutions charged with the responsibility for community development activities. This project will provide training to VDCs committee leaders on use of the Internet as well as introducing the opportunities on offer. The project aims to target VDCs leaders in 2 remote regions with the aim of empowering these village leaders by showcasing to the best of its ability the benefits of using the Internet. By donating a laptop for use by the VDCs of the 4 most rural areas, we can empower these leaders to access information and facilitate communication. No local program has yet targeted these leaders and yet they are influential in community development. The full objective is to target 40 leaders in 4 regions to become Internet champions in their respective areas and contribute to village development issues in a productive way.
Brazil Chapter: Developing community networks in the Northern region of Brazil
Supporting and promoting the development of the Internet to enrich people’s lives, the project aim is to contribute to the growth and improvement of community networks policies and practices in Brazilian rural areas, in order to strengthen those that are marginalized. Instituto Nupef will work to develop a new network in the state of Maranhão as well as a developing a communications plan for the Babassu coconut breakers organizations and movements. Objectives include expanding the reach of community networks with broadband internet, monitoring of legislative and regulatory issues, and consequently documenting the work by disseminating the experiences by way of videos, photos and texts.
Community Networks Special Interest Group (SIG): LibreRouter Phase 2
The LibreRouter is the first multi-radio mesh router that is designed for community networks. It enables simple mesh deployment with little to no manual configuration and provides easy to follow documentation on technical aspects but also for planning and coordination. This Phase 2 project intends to cover an important missing piece: organized remote support for LibreRouter based networks. Main objectives are the design and implementation of a support system dashboard with a support request and follow-up mechanism, as well as extending LibreRouzer software tools to improve on problems identified. Other aims include the completion of documentation materials, hardware improvements and exploration of designs with the objective of lowering costs.
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Dominican Republic Chapter: Creation of an Internet Traffic Exchange Point (IXP)
The project aims to create an IXP in a neutral, reliable, safe and efficient place, achieving the interconnection and exchange of traffic between those involved. Objectives are to raise awareness among local stakeholders regarding both the need and the advantages of an IXP, reducing costs of international interconnection and maintaining local internet traffic at national borders. Improvement of stability and resilience of the Internet service can optimize response times to security incidents and technical problems and the creation of a “community” of operators will give continuity to the project, promoting its expansion and operation according the best local and international practices.
Guinea Chapter: Multi-stakeholders Internet Governance Training
For the first time, a training project aims to set up a multilateral, inclusive, multi-stakeholder and discussion platform related to general Internet issues in Guinea and particularly on Internet governance. Discussions will contribute to the development of the Internet at local, regional and International level. Specific objectives are the training of approximately 70 people from different areas of life, including Government, Business and Civil Society as well as Engineers and Standards Development professionals. A committee will be created to ensure that Guinea’s concerned are addressed as well as addressing the need to increase Internet Governance capacity for Internet users as well as ensuring that stakeholders are well prepared for improved contributions/ interactions.
Kazakhstan Chapter: Women in Cyber Security
The implementation of the project will increase potential, and ensure that young women have the necessary skills and knowledge to understand, participate in and benefit fully from Cyber Security and their applications as well as creating future role models thus increasing the percentage of women in the field. The aim of the training is to bridge the digital gender divide in Cyber Security in Kazakhstan by conducting 8 training sessions of approximately 50 students over a period of two years. Experienced female trainers will use up-to-date Cyber Security educational programs with the objective of increasing to up to 50%, the number of women in this field over the next decade.
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Kyrgyzstan Chapter: Spring of Knowledge
Schools in Kyrgyzstan have a great need more teachers with over 2500 teaching positions unfilled every year. The project aims are to improve the quality of education in Kyrgyzstan and increase the number of personnel to allow teachers to spend more time with students as well as providing additional materials to improve their own training. Objectives are to expand opportunities for studies in pilot locations, stimulating independence and responsibility and reducing the divide between school children in developed countries and those living in Kyrgyzstan in both rural and urban areas. Our aim is to increase the digital literacy of schoolchildren in Kyrgyzstan in pilot locations within 1 academic year.
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Lebanon Chapter: Better Internet for Everyone in Lebanon
In Lebanon, the daily challenge is the peak time when the internet user’s consumption outgrows the total bandwidth capacity and the quality of service is degraded for shared bandwidth offerings and constituting of more than 90% of the residential internet market. Our project is a new business model for shared bandwidth offerings, consisting of a different pricing model based on the time of use as well as a subscriber panel to monitor service quality and accountability. The proof of concept will be tested first with up to 10 local community WISPs and later with other developing countries and ranging from 50 to 1000 subscribers. Comparisons will be made of aggregated graphs effects, consumption behavior, old vs new ISP revenues and finally Community polls to evaluate the new model and prepare to scale once proven.
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Malaysia Chapter: Improving Livelihood of Women Through ICT Empowerment
The project target is to train 400 women to use the MyHelper crowdsourcing application to encourage earning extra income. This three-pronged project provides opportunities for women to develop essential entrepreneurial skills through ICT, empowering them to start their own businesses and use the Internet to improve their livelihood. Training modules will be developed in English as well as local languages such as Malay and Tagalog during a 3-month period, benefitting a large pool of women and ensuring the sustainability of the project. The creation and improvement of profiles will increase crowdsource worker visibility and the application of jobs.
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Morocco Chapter: KASBUY – Promoting Moroccan Women Participation in Digital Economy
Our proposition is the project KASBUY, a web platform to help limited-recipe cooperatives to overcome marketing difficulties in advertising their products and reach out to clients. KASBUY is an e-commerce platform and will allow any registered cooperative to have its own online space from which it will sell its products and manage its business and inventory management activities. The project will encourage the best use of the Internet for sustainable development of local communities and includes opportunities from which women and their families will benefit. With the promotion and preservation of Moroccan artisanal heritage and the use of a universal and accessible web showroom, we aim to improve the maximum employment for women and families, particularly in rural areas.
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Nepal Chapter: Contributing towards better ICT Policy Environment in Nepal
The project goal is to build ICT and Internet related laws and policies in Nepal compatible with both international standards and best practices and ensuring the fundamental human rights of individuals. It will, after analysis, organize consultations with stakeholders and prepare policy recommendations aiming to ensure an open and sustainable Internet and ICT for the benefit of all. Objectives will incorporate the review of draft bills from international standards perspectives, inform major stakeholders of loopholes by sharing policy recommendations and publishing a policy brief for the enhancement of knowledge. Our aim is to ensure the best adoption of internet-related laws that will uphold Internet rights.
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Nigeria Chapter: Zaria Community Network and Culture Hub
The project seeks to use the Internet to improve the quality of education for the formally enrolled, as well as those outside the formal schooling system to resource for basic education, vocational development, and self-employment opportunities. A campaign will be run to enlighten communities on the opportunities available. Goals will include the implementation of free-to-use ISM band to reach research and educational institutions, Community WIFI Hotspots and solar-powered back-up solutions, culture hub web portals, a shared Learning Management System and a Network monitoring infrastructure. A Community Engagement session for 500 Teachers, students and individuals will be conducted as well as continuous enlightenment campaigns and surveys to estimate effectiveness of strategies.
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Youth Special Interest Group (SIG): Creating Networks
Firstly, the project aims to map organizations “of young people” in Latin America to identify how many work with issues related to the Internet and ICT, and leveraging its importance. A website will be created displaying this information, followed by a capacity building phase and introduction, plus chartered topics and sessions related to individual work modules. Objectives will include, after analysis, face-to-face capacity-building sessions on Internet Governance to encourage proactiveness and general connection. Survey results will be published as well as a general guide on the development and experience of the project and the materials used, for use by the general public and in both the Spanish and Portuguese language.
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2017 Grants
Armenia Chapter: Computers, services and Wi-Fi Internet for rural libraries
There is a large number of rural libraries in Armenia, but the overwhelming majority do not have computers. Book circulation is manual as there are no computers and library management programs. There is a need to provide libraries with computers equipped with library management programs that will enable them to subscribe members, register books, organize the book circulation, search requested books, track the movement of books, and control book check-in and check-out as well as quickly receive any required information for the books in the library.
In 2015 Armenia Chapter, aware of the poor state of rural libraries, started a pilot program aiming to help rural libraries with computers, software, training and services. It became clear that they also need help in troubleshooting and repair, operating system, and application program installation. Thus the following plan of support was developed: develop a lightweight library management program; provide computers to libraries; train librarians to use the library management program; and troubleshoot and repair library computers. The Armenia Chapter finished the pilot program with 20 computers and library management programs installed in rural libraries. They provided timely access to requested materials, simplified search/discovery of library resources, and increased library outreach. However while working on the pilot program we estimated that rural libraries need about 1,000 computers. This project aims to install 50 more computers and provide maintenance and training services to rural libraries. We also plan to set up WiFi access for library visitors.
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Argentina Chapter: Argentina Regional IXP
Project Organizer: Camara Argentina de Internet – CABASE
El objetivo del proyecto es poder brindar a la comunidad una mejor calidad de conexion a Internet. En especial en zonas de poco desarrollo o mal atendidas. Generar un punto colaborativo comun donde se empodera a los pequenos ISPS (SMEs) a mejorar su serivicio, permite instalar caches de CDNs (contentent delivery Networks) que seran compartidos entre todos aprovechando sus beneficios. Instalar 2 IXPs en zonas remotas de nuestro pais donde hoy no hay buena calidad de interent en los proximos 12 meses.
Estariamos desmostrando a la industria de internet que gracias a aportes y funding provisto por organizaciones como ISOC y su capitulo local permiten desarrollar la internet en IXPS REGIONALES especiamente en zonas de acceso precario a INTERNET. La idea es testimoniar la formacion de estos IXPS en un VIDEO donde los propios protagonistas puedan contar el logro de haber formado esta comunidad.
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Argentina Chapter: Conectando Comunidades, Internet te Incluye
Project Organizer: Argentina – Asociación Civil Tiflonexos
El proyecto “Conectando comunidades, Internet incluye”, busca impactar directamente en la vida de las personas con discapacidad. En linea con la misión y los valores de ISOC, buscamos utilizar Internet como una herramienta que mejore la calidad de vida de las personas. En este sentido nos proponemos atacar la falta de acceso a la lectura de las personas con discapacidad, proporcionándoles acceso a una Biblioteca Digital de acceso libre para personas con discapacidad y asì disminuir la brecha cultural.
En el año 2015 y 2016 ISOC apoyó dos proyectos llevados adelante por Tiflonexos y Argentina Chapter lográndose generar 6 puntos de acceso a la lectura en provincias desfavorecidas de Argentina. De esta manera se logró alcanzar a unas 300 personas capacitadas en los beneficios que el uso de Internet puede traer para la inclusión de las personas con discapacidad y lográndose el acceso a la lectura de al menos 90 personas.
Barbados Chapter: Project C.A.R.E – Combating (online) Abuse through Research and Education
NOAH recognizes that there is a general unawareness of the problem of online abuse in Barbados. Research carried out primarily in North America and Europe shows that the more severe forms of online harassment disproportionately affect women and girls. While anecdotal evidence suggests this is also true in Barbados, with first-hand accounts of abuse, threats, and revenge porn mainly impacting women there is no available research to highlight the prevalence of online abuse.
This project aims to inform through an awareness campaign about the disproportionate effect online abuse is having on the lives of women and girls in Barbados. By engaging local online celebrities with a proven track record for highlighting topical issues and employing the use of social media, the campaign will reach and resonate with vulnerable groups. Though legislation exists in Barbados which outlaws the type of behaviors that constitute online violence, few cases have been brought before the law courts and victims perceive the response of law enforcement to be inadequate. To address this the project will contract an experienced consultant to conduct a training workshop with law enforcement professionals on the island. The project will also measure the awareness of police officers and document challenges they experience in enforcing existing legislation.
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Bolivia Chapter: Red Academica Boliviana
The Bolivian academic sector is made up of more than 60 universities with half a million students and 20,000 teachers. Unfortunately, these institutions do not have the Internet services adequate to the needs of their communities. This project aims to facilitate the gradual interconnection of all universities and research centers in Bolivia, through high-speed connectivity infrastructures, to allow the sharing of their services and resources. Bolivia Chapter will organize the whole agenda of relations involving all the relevant actors: universities, research centers, and institutions, in order to review and validate the statutes of the Network.
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Canada Québec Chapter: CLIC Québec -Promouvoir le contenu local et les industries culturelles du Québec en ligne
Dans un contexte de croissance du e-commerce et de domination de l’offre de contenus étrangers proposés par les plateformes numériques (Netflix, Amazon, Apple Music, Spotify, Youtube) au Québec, le Projet CLIC Québec cherche à sensibiliser les décideurs politiques et à renforcer les capacités des acteurs des industries culturelles québécoises afin de garantir la mise en marché, la promotion, la distribution, la découvrabilité et l’accessibilité en ligne des oeuvres et contenus québécois tant pour les internautes du Québec qu’à l’international.
Le projet contribue aux missions et aux objectifs de l’Internet Society, d’une part dans le domaine de «l’Accès et Développement» puisqu’il favorisera la diffusion et l’accès plus large à des contenus locaux diversifiés sur Internet ; et d’autre part il contribuera à l’amélioration de l’environnement politique de régulation des nouvelles plateformes numériques et des nouveaux services de radiodiffusion de contenus et de produits numériques, en stimulant et en enrichissant le débat public sur les questions réglementaires telles que les quotas de contenus ou la taxation des fournisseurs de contenus ou des fournisseurs d’accès Internet pour financer la création et la production d’oeuvres et de contenus culturels numériques.
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Exploring digital literacy through the Piikani Cultural and Digital Literacy Camp Program
Project Organizer: Piikani Cultural and Digital Literacy Camp – Alberta, Canada
The Piikani Cultural and Digital Literacy Camp Program is a community-based Indigenous digital literacy initiative in southern Alberta. The project involves researching and developing appropriate forms of Blackfoot (Piikani) digital literacy. Community partners, students and education administrators from Piikani First Nation in Southern Alberta will collaborate with university researchers to investigate and test digital literacy practices and resources. This will be done through an educational program that blends 2 phases of classroom/online learning (covering 3 modules each) with hands-on activities and experiential learning at a 3-day/3-night camp. Students from Piikani Secondary School will learn about Piikani culture while documenting their experience using digital ICT.
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Finland Chapter in partnership with Open Knowledge Finland: The dawn of new digital rights: GDPR and MyData e-learning MOOC for citizens
The aim of this project is to raise citizens’ awareness on the issues concerning personal data usage and the rights users are entitled to, based on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws and regulations, in effect from May 25, 2018. In the future, people will have the right to access their own data in digital format. The project will implement e-learning courses and raises citizen-awareness on issues concerning personal data usage and the digital rights. 3 workshops will be held in 3 cities with 20 people involved in co-creating MOOC material. Each workshop will be targeted at a different groups: one for university students, another for schools and the education sector and the third for a youth organization.
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Honduras Chapter in partnership with Red De Desarrollo Sostenible: Comunidades Inteligentes
Azacualpa-Yamaranguila is a community isolated from development and connectivity suffering of limitations in education, health and economic growth. The inhabitants need to travel to the nearest city to access these services facing the lack of efficient transportation. The project aims to connect through a Internet community network 300 families in Azacualpa; to create articles or information on issues relevant to local problems; to promote the right to Internet access through the establishment of a telecentre and hotspots in different points of the community; to decrease the existing digital gap compared to the nearest city, La Esperanza, by at least 70%.
Kenya Chapter in partnership with MediaNet and Koinonia Community: Safe Online Safe OnLand: Promoting Safety Nets on the Internet for Children
The Internet has presented new challenges in child protection. Studies show that children living in the streets and those in care institutions are at higher risk of abuse than others. This project aims to empower over 450 children, especially those living in the streets, children rescued and now living in rehabilitation homes. 700 children hosted by Koinonia Community will also benefit from this initiative. The project will provide children the opportunity to learn how to use the Internet effectively for their personal, intellectual and spiritual development. To realize this, 10 local Journalists, 10 Teachers, 5 social workers and 10 children will be trained on how to deliver Internet safety programs and help establish Internet safety clubs in schools.
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Kenya Chapter in partnership with Tunapanda Institute: TunapandaNET
Kibera is one of the largest slums in Africa and houses about 250,000 people. Communities living in low income areas have to make the choice between a meal and the internet. The project aims to build a wireless network covering a 20 km range that will give educational empowerment to 4 villages in Kibera, and train teachers and students on digital literacy, wireless networking and Google skills. A data center will be setup at Tunapanda Institute with Internet connectivity to host e-learning and school management platforms. 7 schools, 2 youth centers and 1 women’s center will be connected to access the cloud based platforms.
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Kyrgyz Chapter: Ferghana Valley Internet Exchange Point
Ferghana Valley, located in crossroads of three countries, is the most populated area in Central Asia. There is a source of regional inter-ethnic tensions due to water and land irrigation disputes, poverty, and lack of access to communication services. The Internet Exchange Point Project in the city of Osh in Kyrgyzstan is aimed to increase regional cross-border collaboration between stakeholders and the communication of people through increase of Internet affordability by lower internet service tariff plans up to 3 times, multiple growth of Internet traffic exchange in region, increase Internet penetration rate due to price reduction, better latency for international, and regional content sources.
IXP will help local small and medium ISPs minimize traffic costs and spend more on infrastructure rather than on internet traffic purchase. Establishing the IXP would greatly enhance the utility and value of the regional Internet and promote the growth of the digital economy. According to Terabit Consulting, “Improvement in ICT infrastructure yields: increased demand for the output of other industries (demand multiplier), new opportunities for production in other industries (supply multiplier), new goods and services for consumers (final demand). It also increases firms’ innovation capabilities and increases the probability of new products, innovations, and organizations.”
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Mexico Chapter: Connectivity development model for indigenous communities
In the last year, indigenous communities in Mexico have developed connectivity initiatives to provide Internet to populations that have been excluded from the use of this tool. One of the most remarkable initiatives is driven by the IK ‘TA K’OP Collective, a group of young indigenous educators from the community of Abasolo, Chiapas, who developed a last-mile community mesh network to generate and disseminate educational content called IntraNET Comunitaria YAJ ‘NOPTIK. This experience has served as an starting point for the development of similar projects in the states of Oaxaca and Nayarit, which are proposing the creation of community IntraNETs to strengthen organizational, educational and communication processes.
These initiatives are a new form of access and use of the Internet, converting the disadvantage of the bad quality of connectivity or its high cost in an opportunity through the generation of cooperation and bonding environments.
We believe that last-mile mesh networks administered by the community of Abasolo, Chiapas and, also in Oaxaca and Nayarit, are developing technical and organizational process and producing local content that can be strengthened through a network of indigenous community connectivity (IntraNETS network) that covers technological, economic, organizational and legal aspects and diffusion and exchange of content.
Therefore, this project aims to generate a development model of indigenous community connectivity that includes the above-mentioned aspects and that can be replicated through the systematization of community experiences of last-mile mesh networks in Chiapas, Oaxaca and Nayarit and the development and implementation of an IntraNETs network in those communities. Likewise, it is hoped that this tool will complement the community mobile networks developed in the state of Oaxaca towards 4th generation services.
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Nepal Chapter: Effective Broadband for Health
Project Organizer: Center for Information and Communication Technology for Development
Dailekh District in the Far Western Region of Nepal has a total population of 260,855 but has only one district level hospital. The ratio of doctors to the population is astonishing figure of 1:52,345. Even worse, people have to travel for hours and even days to reach the nearest urban area for full laboratory services for vital check ups.
The project aims to establish a wireless broadband services and provide telemedicine solutions to the village near the district headquarter. The project is not just to develop the infrastructure but also to create a proper information system related to the public health services. The project also aims to bridge the logistic and communication gap between the district level health office to the nearby urban area hospital for required medical services.
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New Mexico Chapter: IT Access and Development in Northern New Mexico: Cultivating Connectivity in the Land of Enchantment
Project Organizer: Community Learning Network
We are strengthening connectivity and IT engagement for community members who reside in the highly rural and mountainous region of northern New Mexico, which has low income levels and high poverty rates but is culturally rich, multi-lingual, and steeped in traditions. Due to difficult terrain, challenging weather, limited economic opportunities, low graduation rates, and high poverty, northern New Mexico has not enjoyed easy access to high-quality IT services and according to the New Mexico Technology Council, “New Mexico internet connection speed ranks 48th in the nation and is similar to the average connection speed of Iraq and Molodova. Even a 7% increase in broadband adoption could create an estimated 15,000 jobs to New Mexico, according to Federal Communication Commission study. New Mexico was also recently reported to have the highest unemployment in the nation.”
Our community is coming together to work to change this situation and to support connecting the unconnected while employing education and community mobilization to support IT becoming a valued tool for self-determination and self-empowerment here in Land of Enchantment.
Palestine Chapter: Online Sexual Harassment-and-Blackmail Awareness for Palestinian Schoolgirls (iSHA-PS)
The project aims to conduct an awareness campaign for schoolgirls to raise the awareness of the dangers of the electronic blackmail and harassment. This will be through performing visits to secondary schools and holding workshops on the best ways of the safe methods in dealing with the Internet, especially social media. In addition to that, we plan to print leaflets and develop a web page to promote the idea of safe and secure internet, parallel with designing video Ads in the local media. The target group of this project is going to be 15-16 years-old female students (9th and 10th grades). The training will be conducted by volunteering university female students. A website will show the best ways to deal with these cases and provide successful experiences.
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Paraguay Chapter: CTN-ISOCpy
The National Technical College of Asunción is one of the most important colleges of industrial technical baccalaureate in Paraguay. The school is attended by more than 1500 students. The few facilities that it owns were donated more than 25 years ago by private or charitable institutions, and they are now obsolete. The project aims to provide the college with 10 Mb of assured bandwidth for Internet access and to create a high-tech computer lab to develop innovative services based on robotics, automation, learning systems, networking and IoT. By the end of the project, 30 teachers will be trained to educate with technological resources and 250 students will be trained in the use of online tools.
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Rwanda Chapter: Internet for Online-Education Audio Library for visual impaired people
Rwandans Institutions have done little in terms of introducing the visually impaired segment of the population to technology, thus they are left behind and there is an obvious need to empower them through the use of the Internet. The project is going to establish an online audio library containing all education material currently used by visual impaired people. Books and all education materials will be converted into digital contents and hosted into an online database accessible to all recognized users. The users will be able to use provided contents through online streaming or downloading and storing on their smartphones or other audio digital devices. A new way of providing recorded homework will be introduced. Traditional classrooms will become digital classrooms as a result.
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Sarantaporo.gr Community Network – Moving towards long term sustainability
Project Organizer: Sarantaporo.gr Wireless Community Network – Elassona, Greece
The Sarantaporo.gr team was formed in 2010 as a joint effort of young people from Sarantaporo village to develop a local context website. Along the way the team realized that the locals could not access the website due to lack of Internet connectivity. The main cause is the low to zero investment interest of Greek telecom service providers due to sparse population distribution. To solve this, the team managed to interconnect 14 villages (5,000 residents) through a backbone network. The new project aims to create, maintain and expand the telecommunication infrastructure as commons in a sustainable manner and train local inhabitants towards building digital skills, in order to prevent the depopulation of the province.
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Sri Lanka Chapter: Girls in Technology – Pilot Project
Girls in Technology is a community based initiative to build a multi stakeholder platform to increase schoolgirls participation in emerging internet technology careers. The project will address the root cause by designing a coding and IoT extracurricular to help grade 9 girls to select ICT subject at grade 10. The project team is made by 71 members: ICT teachers, university students and technology professionals. The innovative aspect of program is the coding club techno-extracurricular used to improve analytical, logical and creative thinking with IoT, using internet and STEM educational resources. The pilot project will empower 40 ICT teachers, 40 University students and 2000 students.
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Switzerland Chapter: Implementing Privacy via Mass Encryption: Standardizing pretty Easy privacy’s protocols
Since the 2013 Snowden revelations of mass surveillance, the level of trust in Internet services has plunged. While discussions around privacy protection had advanced considerably, little progress has been achieved in designing tools that can be used on a daily basis by citizens around the world. The pretty Easy privacy (pEp) project has to goal to radically ease the use of already existing open standards and their corresponding tools for end-to-end encryption, to allow for mass encryption. The pEp project focuses primarily on written digital communications, with the goal of making end-to-end encryption of emails the norm instead of the exception. This is achieved by automating all steps necessary for regular Internet users, to provide a hassle-free, zero-touch experience to everyone. For that to be possible, the ISOC Switzerland Chapter (ISOC-CH) teamed up with the Swiss-based, tax-free pEp foundation to develop Internet-Drafts (I-Ds) for automatization protocols. The pEp foundation has already provides early drafts of I-Ds to achieve the goal of an open standardization of the pEp protocols, but the work to develop them professionally and adapt them to the requirements and expectations of the Internet community (in particular the IETF) can successfully be undertaken in partnership with ISOC-CH. This work would further strengthen the links between the Chapter and the IETF.
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Tanzania Chapter: Piloting the use of TV White Space for Community Networks in Rural Tanzania
Tanzania has experienced an exponential increase in the number of voice telephone and Internet users in the last few years.
Despite of the increase of users, studies have reported that there is still a large Internet gap between rural and urban areas. This project will build a pilot using TV White Space equipment as a community network solution to bridge the identified access gap between rural and urban areas. It aims to improve the life of people in rural areas thus reducing their incentives to migrate to urban areas. The Internet connected network will be owned and operated by community-based secondary schools in Dodoma Region. The experience gained from this pilot will be very valuable for fulfilling similar needs in other rural areas.
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Uruguay Chapter: Flor de Ceibo Conecta2
Project Organizer: Centro Universitario de Rivera – Universidad de la República
Este proyecto se propone trabajar de manera creativa e innovadora para que niños y adolescentes desarrollen competencias digitales y puedan ser constructores de su propia educación. No se trata de usar las tecnologías y la conectividad como simple recurso con el cual se moderniza la práctica pedagógica, y sí utilizar los recursos digitales que tenemos a disposición, para generar espacios de oportunidades para un aprendizaje creativo, motivador y desafiador, construyendo y ampliando una cultura acorde a la sociedad de información y conocimiento a la cual estamos insertos. De este modo, el desarrollo de competencias digitales permitirá a los jóvenes apropiarse de las tecnologías, beneficiarse una Internet abierta y global que permite asistir al mundo desde sus localidades y potenciar su formación como ciudadanos participativos. Serían capaces de adquirir conocimientos, contribuyendo a su educación, de forma de potenciar la mejora de su calidad de vida en concordancia con la Misión de ISOC de promover el desarrollo abierto, la evolución y el uso de Internet para beneficio de todas las personas del mundo, mediante en este caso el apoyo a la educación.
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Zimbabwe Chapter: Off-Grid IoT Urban Farming
Mbare is one of oldest, poorest, crime-ridden, and unhygienic towns in Zimbabwe. Mbare is in urgent need of focused efforts to actualize the SDG Goal 1 of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger. The idea of starting a Community Aquaponics Project was inspired by a mini-project implemented by students in the IoT Makerspace Project in 2016 at St. Peter’s Secondary School. As a way to engage the Makerspace students in a real problem-solving project, two Arduino-based Open Aquarium kits were procured from Cooking Hacks in Spain. School authorities were so impressed with the project that they suggested the idea of converting one of their shades into an Aquaponics project whose fish and vegetable produce would possibly be sold to the Mbare community. The project installed aquaponics and vermiculture technologies running on Arduino and Raspberry Pi as taught in the Makerspace sessions. Upon developing the Mini-Aquaponics project the project team decided to up-scale this idea to benefit the Mbare community in a more empowering, self-sustaining, and educative manner.
Inline with ISOC’s Access and Development goals this project will utilise second-hand freight containers to grow plants and fish using internet technologies. Participants will be exposed to how monitoring conditions are achieved by using sensors and automation made possible through actuators within the Aquaponics setup.
2016 Grants
Kazakhstan Chapter: CSIRT for Educational and Academic institutions in Kazakhstan
Communication networks and information systems have become an essential factor in economic and social development of Kazakhstan. The security of that systems and their availability in particular, is therefore of increasing concern to society. Kazakhstan universities and academic institution are experiencing shortage or even absence of information security professionals which can provide protection of their digital infrastructure from various external and internal threats.
The main goal of this project is setting up Computer Security Incidents Response Team (CSIRT) for academic community in Kazakhstan. A CSIRT is a team of IT security experts whose main task is to respond to computer security incidents. It provides the necessary services to handle them and support their clients to recover from breaches.
Nepal Chapter: Rural Communities Access to Information Society (RUCCESS)
Project Organizer: Bikram Shrestha
Nepal is a country with a great digital divide. While urban Nepal is getting more and more connected, there are large parts of rural Nepal where Internet access is still very hard to come by. This was made worse by the 2015 earthquake, which saw massive infrastructure damage, much of which is still waiting to be repaired.
ISOC Nepal’s Rural Communities Access to Information Society will put community access hubs in rural schools, community centers, and village development offices. It will also focus on training women how to use social media, including Facebook and Viber, to stay in touch with their sons and husbands. (In many of these communities, men go away to work, leaving women and children behind.) The hubs will pay for themselves by charging for things like printing and scanning.
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Nicaragua Chapter: Digital Fabrication Laboratory and Radio Telecommunication Network in rural areas of Nicaragua
The Autonomous Region of the Caribbean North Coast of Nicaragua -RACCN- is the region that has the largest proportion of people living in extreme poverty (69% of the population in the region live below the poverty line). To this, we must add that it is a region, which is highly vulnerable because of natural disasters, the effects of drug trafficking, prone to riots and political nature and affected by the invasion of settlers from the north and central region of the country as a result of advancing geographical position the agricultural frontier. It is a largely rural area with very low levels of access to basic services, access roads in very bad conditions and with very low levels of public investment in technology and education.
The main objective of the project is to provide support and guidance in the use of information and communication technologies, enabling the access to information, learning process and appropriate use of the tools that consequently will contribute to the decision-making processes in their economic development and local growth. One of the main relevant outputs is that farmers from all communities will have access to both, electronic and physical information to market prices, product demand and commercialization opportunities in other municipalities and foreign countries.
NYC Mesh: Internet for Everyone
Project Organizer: Mesh Team with the Support of the US New York Chapter
More than one in four New Yorkers lack access to broadband internet at home, according to the city comptroller. Race and class dynamics highlight this divide. Black and hispanic households are 23% more likely to be without broadband access, and people who lack formal high school education are 360% as likely to lack broadband as New Yorkers with bachelor’s degrees or higher. In the comptroller’s own words the “two major causes of Internet inequality in New York City are the high cost and poor quality of broadband compared to other cities” (Internet Inequality Stringer, City of New York 2014).
Our goal with this project is to get internet access and open-source software into the hands of people who have been purposefully excluded by the large telecommunications companies. We intend not only to install 50 nodes around three neighborhoods to extend cheap or free access to 50 more buildings (and at least two households per building). This will not only provide free, street-level access to anywhere between ½ a block and several blocks depending on building height, topography, and density, but will also make the marginal cost much lower for neighbors who don’t get the free hardware.
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Paraguay Chapter: CNL-ISOCpy
The development of experiences based on the incorporation of ICT in school work has acquired a variety of formats and has obtained different results; This project will provide low-income schools with fixed broadband access and a classroom equipped with state-of-the-art computers in proportion to the student population, as well as educational management software for principals, teachers, parents and students.
The incorporation of new information and communication technology in schools opens up a world of possibilities for students and teachers. Our project will provide schools in low-income areas with broadband access and a classroom equipped with state-of-the-art computers, enough that every student will be able to use them regularly. It will also give schools educational management software that will connect administrators, teachers, parents and students, allowing them to monitor each student’s progress and give them the help the need to succeed.
Philippines Chapter: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Post-Disaster Resilient Communications
In remote and rural parts of the Philippines, telecommunications networks can be spotty at the best of times. When a natural disasters hit, they’re wiped out completely. But that is about to change thanks to ISOC Philippines’ new Unmanned Aerial Vehicles project.
The plan would see UAVs — or what most of us call drones — sent up in disaster zones to act as wireless relays and data aggregators. The drones would set up a local MESH network that would help people get in touch with loves ones. It would also help emergency workers to talk to one another.
The project also hopes to make sure the drones will able to work with Unmanned Ground Vehicles to find information about the situation on the ground. This helps emergency workers work safely and efficiently.
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Senegal Chapter: COWShED: COmmunication within White Spots for brEeDers
The livestock transhumance in Senegal is done in several areas and more specifically in the sylvo-pastorale areas located in the Ferlo’s region where it is difficult or impossible to communicate with terrestrial communication systems. The main reason is due to the existence of white spots. A white spot is defined as a no cellular coverage area.
To overcome the presence of white spot satellite communications can be used. However, in underserved areas, satellite communications are very expensive for people.
Therefore, we propose a low-cost communication for rural population such as breeders, farmers based on long range radio communication within ISM (Industrial, Science and Medical) bands. It is worth noticing that the ISM band is free. The proposed autonomous mobile mesh network is developed by breeders to lead livestock’s, in a safe manner, where grass and water points are available. Our main goal is to encourage activities that can generate financial returns for rural population by preserving the environment.
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Senegal Chapter: e-Daara of Thieyetou
Project Organizer: Alex Corenthin
The Internet is hard to come by in Thieyetou. The Senegalese village is about 30 kilometers from the nearest city and surrounded by desert. This means it’s both hard to maintain hardware and difficult to get it fixed when dust gets in the machines.
Internet Society Senegal Chapter is working with Senegal’s Ecole Supérieur Polytechnique with the aim of turning the Thieyetou’s elementary school into a digital hub for everyone. The community will get a local Ethernet network with a long range wifi hotspot. The school itself will get a low-energy, solar powered Raspberry Pi computer lab. Finally, teachers will get access to open source software that will allow them to digitize student records. When classes are not running, the computer lab will be open as a cyber café.
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South Africa Gauteng Chapter: Upgrading the Zenzeleni Network
Project Organizer: Lwando Mdleleni
Mankosi, in the Eastern Cape Province, is one of South Africa’s most economically disadvantaged communities. Most residents live on less that $2 US per day. In spite of this, the people living there value connectivity like anyone else. Residents spend an average 22% of their income on the ability to connect and communicate. Unfortunately, even with this, less than a quarter of residents are online in any given month. Those that are keep their usage to a minimum.
Thankfully, Mankosi is getting an alternative to expensive, spotty service. The Zenzeleni Network co-op was set up in 2012 to provide voice service to the community, using analog phones connect to WiFi routers and VOiP technology.
Now, South Africa Gauteng Chapter and the University of Western Cape are assisting Zenzeleni Networks to upgrade the system to create a powerful and stable network to help get more people online. The program will also see computer labs set up in the Mankosi’s primary and secondary school, and computer literacy training for teachers. The goal is to make it possible for people in Mankosi to get online for a fraction of what it currently costs, and turn Zenzeleni into a model for community-owned telecommunications companies.
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Spain Aragon Chapter: A Safe Internet for Kids Under 12 – Prohibition is Not the Answer
Project Organizer: Andres Gomez
We all want to make sure children can stay safe online. Unfortunately, locking kids out of the Internet doesn’t work. Prohibition is not the answer.
This project aims to take a different approach to Internet safety. One that focuses on education, information, and building trust. It will teach children how to use the Internet in a responsible way, that both keeps them safe and teaches them not to bully other kids online.
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Spain Catalonia Chapter: net4all
Project Organizer: Roger Baig
In Catalonia, Guifi.net has changed the way people get online. The free, open, neutral communications network is self-organized and operated by users. The network is currently accounting for more than 30.000 working nodes. In 2009, it started deploying fiber optic cable to farms in rural communities. Internet Society Spain Catalonia Chapter is turning Guifi.net best practice into capacity building for community networks future development. The project is divided in two one-year phases.
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Uganda Chapter: Creating Wikipedia local content in Uganda’s schools
Project Organizer: Lillian Nalwoga
Internet usage is on the rise in Uganda. As of June of last year, roughly 37% of Ugandans were online, up from an estimated 10% five years earlier. The problem is these new users aren’t finding enough material in their language. Internet Society Uganda Chapter has come up with a quick way to increase the amount of content in the most commonly spoken language in Uganda. They will translate content from English Wikipedia into Luganda.
They will also train Ugandan high school students to become Wikipedia editors and encourage the use of Wikipedia as an educational resource.
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US San Francisco Bay Area Chapter: Bridging California’s Rural/Urban Digital Divide with Mobile Broadband
California’s Central Valley is a major provider of food to the nation and the world, but its own rural development is hindered by inadequate broadband service. The level of broadband claimed by regional Internet providers does not reflect the reality.
Precision agriculture is the suite of technologies that enable farmers to gather data about fields and apply accurate water and chemical inputs to crops, maximizing production while minimizing environmental impact. The next generation of precision agriculture is moving to the cloud, where data are transmitted to companies for sophisticated analyses in real time, further increasing the impact of precision agriculture.
The overall goal of this project is to establish mobile broadband performance in agricultural areas in Yolo County and compare that performance to provider claimed performance and to precision agriculture technology demands, so that these data can inform public policy making on rural broadband.
Yemen Chapter: Internet@MySchool
Project Organizer: Hilmi Abdulkawi Hameid
Due to poverty and political instability, Yemen is one of the least connected countries in the Middle East. It’s a major problem, especially in a country where over 40% of people are under 15 and at risk of being left behind in a high-tech global economy.
A new pilot program from ISOC Yemen will give students at six Yemeni high schools a chance to become part of the Internet. One boy’s school and one girl’s school from the country’s three largest cities will not only get connected, but will have the chance use the Internet in their studies. This includes everything from booklets to special guest lectures. The project will be a pilot with the goal of getting more and more young Yemenis get online.
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2015 Grants
Armenia Chapter: Radio Menq – The Internet Radio for People with Visual Impairments
Project Organizer: Igor Mkrtumyan
The creation of the Internet Availability Center in 2012 for blind and visually impaired people at the Culture House of Blinds in Yerevan, Armenia, triggered creative ideas among active members and instructors of the center. They reached the conclusion that a Internet Radio station could make a significant change in the lives of visually impaired people.
Through a comprehensive programmation, this project will help Armenian blinds to be well informed of their rights and privileges, problems and solutions, new opportunities and success stories. They will become trained to overcome psychological barriers for integration into the society.
Оn March 14th 2016, the first recording took place at Radio MENQ ( in Armenian means We!) located in the Culture House of the Blinds. Yura Avetisyan, their visually impaired director, talked about chess game and its role in the lives of people with different abilities. The news about opening ceremony was broadcasted by Armenia and Shant TV channels, as well as by Noyyan Tapan (Noa’s Arch) information agency.
Practical and psychological matters find voice and solutions in the broadcast programming. More than 45 disabled artists and scientists were invited as guests to share their experience in living with handicaps. More than 200 programs were broadcast in 2016. This Radio is opening up new horizons for visually impaired and their families. The project is creating innovation and a local solution with global impact.
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France Chapter: Simplification of Terms and Conditions
Project Organizer: Nicolas Chagny
The law on confidence in the digital economy (LCEN) forced each website to acquire imprint with clear and identical information, enabling any user to identify the publisher of a site, and its host contact. In 2013, the Internet Society conducted the global survey on Internet usage called “Global Internet User Survey”. We noted that a majority of French Internet users feels helpless in terms of protection of privacy on the Internet. Only 7% of respondents say they always read the terms of use and privacy (TOS). Among those that sometimes read these conditions, only 12% says they completely understand it. Over 90% of respondents do not systematically pay attention to privacy rules.
The project is not intended to analyze, classify or judge the Terms and Conditions of websites, but to improve accessibility and readability of these terms.
Guatemala Chapter: Community Internet Center for Indigenous Mayans
Project Organizer: Andrew Ettinger
This project aims to provide Internet access and educational Internet training for indigenous Mayan children and families.
A Community Internet Center will be created, a space where the entire community is invited to use the Internet for free, with staff that has been trained to teach others how to use the systems. This will encourage people in the community who do not have access to a computer nor money to use the local Internet cafes to learn about Internet and how to use it.
Access to emerging tech and the new economy for indigenous Guatemalans is one way for them to escape the cycle of endemic poverty.
India Kolkata Chapter: IICB – Indian IETF Capacity Building Program – Phase II
Project Organizer: Anupam Agrawal
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Internet Society (ISOC) and Internet Architecture Board (IAB) are important Internet governance organisations concerned with the technical aspects of the Internet. Countries, which have representation in the core technical activities of these organisations, can have significant contribution and strong presence in the world of Internet governance. However, till date India’s participation in these organisations is almost negligible.
As such Phase I – of the IICB program was initiated which was to create a broad level approach framework, Converting the objectives into actionable goals, conduct awareness sessions in 5 colleges, 5 SMEs and then conduct 2 IICB conferences along with creating a common IT platform to work on IETF nationally and send 2 people on partial fellowships to any IETF meeting. This received the support of Government of India as well and is nearing its completion. The IT platform – iicb.org showcases everything done till now.
The current project will seek to achieve Phase II of the IICB program. During this phase, MOU will be signed with participating institutions, awareness sessions will be conducted therein and IICB conferences will be hosted by forming consortium of participating institutions every quarter and then publication of a quarterly digest on IETF participation and contribution. The project also endeavors to start the process of remotely attending IETF meetings All these efforts are being channelized for hosting of IETF in India (Either IETF -100 / IETF 103) wherein ISOC Kolkata Chapter is working very closely with Government of India and initial interactions have been made with the IETF Administrative committee as well.
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Lebanon Chapter: Open Data Lebanon
Project Organizer: Nabil Bou-Khaled
This project aims to host and manage the opendatalebanon.org portal and provide guidance and support to the various government agencies to assist them in the identification, transformation and publication of their datasets on the portal.
Most of that government data is public data by law, many governments around the world have been publishing their data on specialized websites free of charge. The purpose of this project is to start populating the platform with real data sets originating from government entities. For that, Lebanon Chapter will manage the portal and provide guidance and support to the various government agencies to assist them in the identification, transformation and publication of their datasets on the website.
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Non-visual access to the digital library (NoVA)
Project Organizer: Woubakal Tesfaye
According to recent studies, about 4 Million out of the 75 Million inhabitants of Ethiopia live with visual impairment. Prejudices and educational limitation lead them to economical and professional marginalization.
The NoVA project (Non-visual access to digital library) aims to fulfill the information needs of visually impaired students who are attending high school or higher educational institutions, visually impaired employees and job seekers.
The contents of this web-based library will be uploaded mainly by Together!, Ethiopian Residents Charity. To facilitate accessibility for the users, the web-based digital library will include free accessible programs and support different languages, as Ethiopia is a melting pot of nations and nationalities.
The immediate result of this project will be providing accessible resource and reference in electronic documents and audio books to visually impaired. NoVA will not only be the first digital library exclusively made for visually impaired in Ethiopia, but it will offer a forum to create an online blind community.
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Observatorio de la Juventud
Project Organizer: Adela Goberna
The “Youth Observatory” is an initiative of young members of Internet Society in Latin American countries, seeking to build a participatory platform to bring knowledge about Internet governance and principles to the youth in Latin America, regardless of their language, sex, race, religion, etc., building capacity among young people. Also, through these tools, build knowledge among young people, enabling them to acquire skills to address these issues.
Currently, the project has more than 80 young people from different countries involved. The organization has a solid structure, rules and regulations that enable it for a continued growth.
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Pakistan Islamabad Chapter: Hamara Internet
Project Organizer: Nighat Dad
Organisations and initiatives that deal with the rights of women in Pakistan will tackle harassment, but do not focus on the role played by ICTs.
In the absence of any proactive laws to tackle cyber harassment, Nighat Dad, digital rights advocate, with the support of Pakistan Chapter, created Hamara Internet (“Our Internet”) a pioneer campaign to raise the awareness of digital violence against women, and to provide women with the necessary knowledge and tools to protect their online and offline freedom of expression via comprehensive workshops and trainings.
By fostering digital literacy among women, they will be able to not only safety and effectively navigate digital spaces themselves, but will also help their families and friends to protect themselves as well.
To encourage the replication of the project by Chapters all over the world, the program is well organized through a wide range of activities and a dedicated website.
Nighat Dad was honoured with the Atlantic Council Digital Freedom Award for 2016
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Sri Lanka Chapter: Beyond the Reach. A new vision for the physically challenged
Project Organizer: Sagarika Wickramasekera
Sri Lanka has a population of 20 million, around 200,000 people are believed to be visually impaired. Many of them lost their sight during the civil war (1983-2009).
An Army project was already initiated following the require from visually impaired soldiers. They wanted to use the Internet as a tool to stop their isolation and find a job to reintegrate into society.
Internet Society Sri-Lankan Chapter together with a local organization for the blind decided to bring this idea to life and include all visually impaired person in the country. In the initial phase, the project will create a core group of future trainers of 10 visually impaired individuals and train them in computer literacy.
After receiving their certification this group will begin to train their fellow visually impaired citizens. In the second phase, a Mobile Lab will be developed to reach out to visually impaired people in remote locations that have poor access to Internet. The future goals of the project is to extend the Internet training programme to all physically challenged of Sri Lanka.
Watch the interview with Sagarika Wickramasekera to find out what obstacles they encountered and what the project achieved so far.
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Tunisia Chapter: Alliance Article 32
Project Organizer: Mondher Laabidi
The purpose of this project is to defend the values and principles of freedom of access to information and networks in Tunisia, following article 32 of the new Tunisian constitution.
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Turkey Chapter: Safer and conscious use of the Internet and ICTs among K-12 children in Turkey
Project Organizer: Fatma Demirel
According to the EU Kids Online: National Perspectives report, 25% of children in Turkey express statements that are perceived as constituting Internet addiction (defined as “excessive use” in the report).
This project seeks to educate children on safer Internet use and teach them how to avoid risks online while using social media, search engines, and video gaming sites. We believe that through education, children can become more aware of the risks of Internet use and they can use the Internet without the need for any kind of prohibitions of content – since blocking content is not the solution, which is in line with the values of ISOC.
We will also conduct seminars and workshops about how to access reliable information from the Internet. As indicated in the ISOC mission, we are aiming for all people benefit to benefit from using the Internet.
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WiFi-UH
Project Organizer: Alejandro Ramos Encinosa, Cuba
The University of Havana, the oldest and biggest university in Cuba, is located in the center of the city and it has facilities all around. With more than 25 000 students it only has around 3000 computers in its labs, which is not enough for our community to fully cover all the needs for contents for learning, research and innovation.
The project’s main goal is to provide the University of Havana with a powerful WiFi network in all its main campuses. This network will allow the community to access the Internet using their personal devices such as mobile phones, tablets, laptops, etc. It will also permit the visitors and people living close to the university to surf the net. The access points will be placed in order to cover all the open spaces in the university. Besides the implementation of the WiFi network, the project encompasses the training of the technical personal and the introduction of this kind of technology to the users.
This project would constitute the first attempt to provide a Cuban university with such an important platform for the spreading of knowledge.
Zimbabwe Chapter: Internet of Things Makerspaces
Project Organizer: Solomon Kembo
Most Zimbabwean schools are operating on shoe-string budgets as budgetary support from government is limited and students barely afford to pay fees. As such access to modern ways and tools of learning, such internet and IoT toolkits is a pipe dream.
The project will establish Internet of Things (IoT) Makerspaces, at selected Zimbabwean schools, to inspire and equip local students with IoT skills and resources, enabling them to develop problem-solving IoT projects in their communities.
The pilot started at St Peter’s Mbare High School in a suburb of Harare, attended by 20 enthusiastic pupils aged between 12 and 18, who proudly refer to the Makerspace as “The Freedom Makers”. The training will last 9 months with frequency of 2 days a week.
First year program is based on Genuino/Arduino systems due to their low power requirements and flexibility. The Do-It-Yourself nature of the project enables them to develop real things (making an interacting traffic light, creating an Alarm System, controlling LEDs with a remote control…) and see the fun side of learning.
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