It’s the end of July, but we’re still dreaming about the Allied Media Conference!
Earlier this month, CTNY staff had the opportunity to finally see our friends and collaborators again during AMC in Detroit. Together with the Detroit Community Technology Project (DCTP) and The POINT CDC, we created a space for community members, organizers, and Digital Stewards to explore models of community-owned broadband infrastructure and envision what these projects could look like in both cities.
Let’s create community-owned & future-ready broadband Infrastructure!
We kickstarted our AMC week with a network gathering at the Equitable Internet Initiative (EII) and NEWCC. We co-hosted a workshop with participants from across our partner organizations in Detroit and explored new models of community-owned internet infrastructure. We grounded our investigation with one simple, but powerful idea: “If majority Black & Brown, historically disinvested communities do not own and control our own means of communication, we cannot succeed in organizing for housing, food, education, environmental justice, and racial equity.”
On our second day at AMC, our friends at NEWCC hosted a community network tour in the North End and Hamtramck neighborhoods of Detroit. Highlights included a community-run solar charging/bike repair station, many exciting rooftop nodes, and the best ice cream shop in Detroit.
More updates from this network gathering are coming soon! (Follow us on social media to stay connected 😉) In the meantime, we hope that the vision of community-owned infrastructure can help shape your digital justice work, as it does for us. We invite you to re-think how broadband ownership can work with us, instead of against us. Who actually owns the internet and how do we build networks that are… more democratic? More sustainable? How do we build networks that are grounded in community care and solidarity?
CTNY News & Updates 