Help us expand community wireless in Detroit
The Detroit Digital Stewards have launched a campaign to raise funds to expand community wireless in Detroit. Your support is needed!
Check out our campaign on Indiegogo and watch the wonderful campaign video which features friendly and animated router friends!
Community networks for community power
We are working to raise $5,000 to support wireless mesh networks in Detroit. We have some cool perks to share with contributors! Your donations are tax-deductible.
Click below to watch our campaign video!
Digital Stewards campaign video
Community networks for community power
The Digital Stewards program envisions a future where all people have equal access to the skills, tools, and infrastructure they need to exercise that right. Towards that end, we are growing community-rooted technologists who will facilitate the design and implementation of communication technologies in their neighborhoods. The Digital Stewards are committed to using technology to strengthen human connections to each other and the planet and to foster healthy communities.
The Digital Stewards 2014 training program focused on wireless mesh technology. Wireless mesh networks are local “Intranets” that allow neighbors to share Internet connections and develop applications to support community information-sharing. Through this program, we trained a cohort of Detroit activists to assess their communities’ technology needs, design a wireless mesh network that could meet those needs, and finally, install the network. The stewards who have completed the program are now committed to growing and maintaining their neighborhood networks into the future, and providing support to each other across networks.
Check out a recent article about our work in Model D.
Equipment needed for our networks
The funds raised from this campaign will be exclusively spent on equipment needed for our networks.
Our goal is raise $5,000 to purchase new routers, to be distributed across the 7 existing neighborhood networks, increasing the number of nodes in their networks from between 2 and 10, depending on the needs.
We will also purchase servers that will be able to provide hosting space for local applications on the networks.
The expansion of these networks will help provide low cost Internet connection to more community members, while the construction and maintenance of the network facilitates relationships of mutual aid between neighbors.
We are additionally pursuing funding from other sources for the development of community information-sharing applications to be hosted on the local server in each mesh network. These applications will share neighborhood oral histories and art, and could be used to address issues such as neighborhood safety and monitoring environmental pollution.
Read more about our campaign and contribute here »
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