Table of Contents
- Fueling the Fight for Net Neutrality
- Embracing Ranked-Choice Voting as a Pathway to Pluralism
- Measuring U.S. Drone Use and Misuse
- Fulfilling the Promise of Child Savings Accounts
- Linking the Individual Mandate and Social Responsibility
- Tracking Terrorism in the United States
- Early Education Doesn't End at Pre-K
- Making Higher Education Outcomes Transparent
- Redefining Care Policy
- Using TV "White Spaces" to Create Equitable Internet Access
- Investing in America's Future Thinkers
- Proposing the Public Option
- Creating a Public Interest Technology Sector
- Building a New Practice of Public Problem-Solving
- Expanding Access to High School-Age Youth for High-Quality Apprenticeship Opportunities
- Engaging North Korea
- A Universal 401(k) Plan
- Measuring the Internet for Everyone
- Rethinking Economic Policy
- Documenting the Long Wars
- Ranking Digital Rights
- Future Tense
- Using Fiction to Make Policy More…Realistic
- Pop-Up Magazine
- Developing an MA in Global Security
- Helping Communities Deploy Mesh Networks
- Partnering with Universities
Helping Communities Deploy Mesh Networks
Idea
To achieve a resilient, surveillance-free internet designed and built by the community, the Open Technology Institute developed Commotion, a free and open-source communication tool that uses mobile phones, computers, and other wireless devices to create decentralized mesh networks.
Incubation
Alongside the development of the technology, OTI directly engaged with communities in U.S. cities to identify local needs and build accountable community engagement by recruiting and training local volunteers to deploy and maintain the technology.
Impact
As covered in the New York Times, Commotion provided durable connectivity to the Red Hook neighborhood in Brooklyn even in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, when commercial internet connections weren’t working. The network kept hundreds of community members connected to one another and allowed them to seek critical recovery support in the aftermath of the storm.