Call for Action for Liberating Knowledge: Building Community Digital Libraries for All

The entire world’s knowledge can now be accessed over the internet or through digital infrastructure. Computers and IT being the central for the development today, there is a huge gap persisting in society as many are not in reach or having access to digital knowledge systems and learning environments. To bridge this divide, Swecha AP proposes to set up โ€˜Community …

Free Software and Open Knowledge Systems as a catalyst to bridge digital divide through Community Networks

Set Knowledge Free mural illustration

I want to present our experience on how Free and Open Source Software and Open Knowledge Systems worked as a catalyst in our mission to bridge the digital divide through Community Networks. Dates back to 2016 when we advocated community networks and Freedombox as tools to combat surveillance. But later we went on to implement in rural areas as Public …

Visiting freedom box villages and charting plans for community empowerment

The history One year ago, we visited some remote places in Andhra Pradesh, India where there is no cellular connectivity, to set up community-run, wireless networks. The idea was to provide access to offline-only digital-content with the help of freedom box server with a wireless local area network using long range outdoor Wi-Fi antennas. In some villages, there was a wired optical …

Our trip to a “disconnected” world

Its somewhere around 2021 a five members from Swecha AP and KLGLUG (KLU GNU/Linux Users Group) went on a journey to a tribal interior and a scenic area called Maredumilli in Andhra Pradesh to understand the cultures and living style of people. In that process we went deep inside the the villages and spoke with few people. While we kept …