(RE)Building Technology

As part of our continued partnership with community organizers working on digital justice issues and building community-controlled communications infrastructure, the Open Technology Institute and the Detroit Community Technology Project published a collection of tools, stories and practices at the Community Technology Network Gathering convened as part of the 17th annual Allied Media Conference held in Detroit.

Download complete zine (compiled by Ryan Gerety, Andy Gunn and Diana Nucera): Re(Building) Technology Zine (v1). The introduction is excerpted below.

Additional materials on community organizing around digital justice available here: http://communitytechnology.github.io.

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Introduction: Our Common Infrastructure°°°

Today our shared digital infrastructure underpins mass digital surveillance, online bulk data collection and marketing, corporate control of Internet services, data systems collecting school performance metrics, workplace monitoring, and other systems of control. To resist these systems, people continue to build community-based technology projects and demonstrate an alternative vision. We find these small acts of resistance to digital control in neighborhoods, small towns, and rural areas around the world inspiring and rich with lessons in what the role of technology can be to restore neighborhoods, build new relationships, and develop new systems that encourage collaboration and creativity.

Examples of these alternatives include shared computer centers, privacy and counter-surveillance trainings, community wireless and cell networks, media training programs, government transparency projects, storytelling platforms, community radio stations, and more.

Technology and the Internet have the ability to transform our communities, assist in economic development, and help residents understand and utilize the power they already have. Community technology is a method of teaching and learning about technology with the goal of restoring relationships and healing neighborhoods. Community Technologists are those who have the desire to build, design and facilitate the healthy integration of technology into their communities.

In this collection, we aggregate a handful of tools, stories, and practices to support the growth and development of the community technology movement. Download (Re)Building Technology (v1).

** illustration by: Nguyen Khoi Nguyen