# 2. Mozilla and 1. RBS Grant - questions

[toc]
## RBS

ref: [RBS call document](https://www.bosch-stiftung.de/sites/default/files/documents/2020-07/Guidelines%20Reducing%20Inequalities%20Through%20Intersectional%20Practice%202020.pdf)

## three key individuals
* both 150 words for each
* Shalini, Dinesh, Sanketh

### short bio
Shalini - indigenous and women and migrants
Dinesh - LGBTQ, low-literacy, women and migrants
Sanketh - appropriate skills, idigenous learning, maker culture

ref https://www.apc.org/en/user/1715/
blog.janastu.org rotary docs

### ex with intersectional practice

## organisation

**ref.. blog by mai/dweb**
I have published the blog post recapping the event on the Internet Archive blog:
https://blog.archive.org/2020/08/11/community-networks-adapt-to-new-realities-under-covid-a-dweb-meetup-recap/

You can also find it on Medium, without embedded videos:
https://medium.com/decentralized-web/community-networks-adapt-to-new-realities-under-covid-a-dweb-meetup-recap-d9367f74735a

### mission
* 150w

### exp with intersectional approaches
* 500w

ref http://j.mp/RuralJunctions

* work around creating archives, storytelling, connectivity
* work with low-literacy communities, intersections of caste+gender
* work with women, encountering and navigating caste barriers
* rural junction

*version:*
Janastu's work, over the past couple of decades, finds its grounding in intersectional approaches. A key agenda for us has been establishing rural junctions that help rural and remote areas in India, that do not have access to digital technologies and infrastructures for connectivity. We have built and integrated low cost, accessible and inclusive software and hardware for connectivity and learning. Working with low-literacy communities, our work has compelled reimaginations of internet and archiving that incorporate audio-visual elements, translations and renarrations of protocols, so as to suit specific contexts of the communities we work with in better ways. Much of our work has focused on women and their education and labour, with extensive field-visits that helps us build sustainable, low-cost technologies with them. The caste location of the communities we work with has often been a structural issue that has been difficult to overcome, but one that we have been mindful of in our building process. Through our approach of building solutions that communities can sustain and adapt themselves, we have tried to build technological infrastructure that is both collective and decentralised.

### achievements
* 400w
* pantoto, alipi, webinar pi, cow mesh setups?

## project
* 500w
* https://www.medianama.com/2020/05/223-bridging-india-digital-divide-covid19-part-1/
* https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/78-rural-indians-saw-their-work-coming-standstill-during-lockdown-survey-130624
* work with urban working class migrants
* understanding access to tech + tech as mediator for jobs and edu + understading significance of tech
* ram and edu
* other research, will link
* covid induced issues
* scope of connectivity + access through low-cost, community driven tech
* storytelling + archiving their experiences, under their control
* education + sustaining tech themselves
* how to bring radio and learning
* space for interventions, policy as a follow up - possible direction for decentralised connectivity and learning
* w4p learnings
* younger ppl learning, older ppl skill (esp women), help each other publish on the web after some ex

### learning from ex, learning priorities, reflection from project
* 400w
* policy stuff from above
* our situation vs west situation - digital divide
* bring out intersectionality and diversity that gets lost in typical edu policies etc
* new opportunity in human/tech evolution - more inclusive audio/visual stuff vs text

### relevance of approach, compared to other approaches
* 400 w
* familiarity with field -- people in blr/karnataka, conversations + dependence on their work
* first step to understand, tech to support recording experiences and encourage self expression
* work-based migration, intersections of language politics/gender/caste/class affecting access to opportunities and services
* filling existing gaps through low cost, sustainable tech
* potential for building communities in largely gig based work
* people using individual cellphone - microsocial structures within that use vs community-based infra - take pieces and integrate - integrating hard/soft-ware in line w intersectional needs

## funding

### how will funds be used
* 200w
* learning: from ram to awareness workshop in migrant/low-income areas around bangalore 35%
* ongoing practice: 55%
* overhead: 10%

## Mozilla grant

https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/07/23/mozilla-joins-new-partners-to-fund-open-source-digital-infrastructure/
details of call: https://fordfoundation.forms.fm/2020-digital-infrastructure-research-rfp/forms/8103

https://fordfoundation.forms.fm/2020-digital-infrastructure-research-rfp/forms/8103/responses/new

primarily focused on implementation?

## vision of success and what impact will it have?
(200w)
We intend to work with the Ragi Gudda Slum in Bangalore, which was a high-rise housing settlement project for state rehabilitation of slum dwellers in 2011-2012. The people lack access to formal credit, job mobility, education and healthcare. Our vision is to create an open-source eco-system of connectivity for them that makes their needs accessible.

We will begin by setting up a wifi mesh network in the region. Several households have been enthusiastic about working towards such connectivity infrastructure. The problems of connectivity, although present long before the pandemic, were amplified because of it. Education and work that was available before cannot be accessed anymore because of the lack of networks and devices. Through this project, we hope to build a resilient connectivity infrastructure for the communities in the Ragi Gudda slums using mesh routers and community radio facilities.

Through this project, we would also like to work on training the women and youth in the region in open source technology by starting tech-circles and GLUGs (GNU/Linux User Groups) so that the communities are not only able to maintain open-source infrastructure themselves, but also succeed in innovating and customising this open-source infrasture based on their evolving needs.

## project team and collaborators
(200w)
Servelots began in 1999 when a group of computer scientists came together to provide low-cost and user friendly software solutions to small enterprises. In 2002, Servelots initiated Janastu that provides innovative open source solutions to not-for-profits and communities. Janastu has been granted 12A tax exemption for its work on “Software Commons”.

We have worked regionally, nationally and internationally with a wide range of partners: with Mitan on renarration of Bio Cultural Protocols and the Follow Sheep project; with the Alternative Law Forum on renarration of the Minimum Wages Act; with Maraa on community radio policy technology application; with Development Alternatives on community radio audio-tagging and indigenous archives; with NCBS on the 25 years exhibit of the archives; with IIHS on a media monitoring service; with Gottingen on the Democracy Archives; with Bogazici University on renarration web research; with the Freifunk group on mesh networks; and with Reseau Billital Maroobe of Niger on developing an IVR box for BCP dialog initiation with their shepherding communities. Since then we have been encouraging the use of mesh for services such as archives and annotations for low-literate community needs for media making, archiving and retrieval using a number of approaches.

## money and months

## link dump
https://bengaluru.citizenmatters.in/bengaluru-slum-dwellers-trapped-bankrupt-and-poor-forever-7778

## tactical tech

We are a sibling-collective "Janastu Labs" operating within Janastu. Janastu Labs includes Upasana, Yatharth, Shafali and Micah who are all under 26 years of age. We work with different digital technologies with and for communities.
Janastu((
https://open.janastu.org
) works on building free and open source technologies for the global south, and builds tools for a truly inclusive web that can address the needs of low-literacy communities that remain unaccounted for in a text-based internet. Tools for a truly inclusive Web need to consider that a large population of the world have low reading literacy, particularly indigenous communities and those experiencing systemic inequity and prejudice. Allipi(
https://open.janastu.org/our-work/projects/alipi
) was one of the projects that we undertook to restructure the way renarration is performed on the website. We consider renarration as an important subversion of the Eurocentric English text-based imaginations of the internet. Another project in Mirzapur(
https://open.janastu.org/our-work/projects/garmi-girls-project
) that we are excited about is a program for digital literacy with young women who are 18-25 years old. Namdu1Radio(
https://www.namdu1radio.com
) is another initiative under which we have set up a community radio run by schoolgirls from Durgadalli hills in Tumkur. This is a documentation of the project -
https://youtu.be/-GMFE-8ML3c
We were looking at Data Detox x Youth toolkit which is very interesting in the ways that it deals with the purposely obscured usage permissions of smartphone apps. Here in India, we have been observing a similar trend in misinformation and network pollution. Considering there is an explosive rise in the use of the Internet and communication networks, there is a large part of the population who are the next-billion users. So in the context of India, what is needed isn't a detoxification but rather a concerted effort to build support channels for secure adoption of technology. What we are imagining is a renarration of the toolkit to address such scenarios where the unfamiliarity with invasive digital practices and concerns about ownership and agency come to the fore. Janastu has worked with communities over a long period with methods that are participatory. Our work has always been community-oriented and contextually located. We plan to co-create this re-adaptation with our stakeholders from the low literate communities through workshops and community consultations.

##

We are absolutely flattered to see the responses we got for the open call. The quality of all the proposals and pitches were beyond our expectations. As curators it's always difficult to make decisions about which proposals to take forward for a meaningful narrative for the exhibition. Unfortunately, currently we can only fund 7 projects in the short time frame, but hopefully overtime we would be able to grow our network.

Since there were so many responses to the open call, this is a semi-generic reply but we have looked at all applications in detail and have come to the decision of not being able to take your proposal forward for the time being. We will be adding everyone to our records for the upcoming network of practitioners across tropics and hopefully reach out if future opportunities arrive.

As people who have been on the other side of these emails several times, we want you to know that the team really appreciates the ideas and work you bring to the table and hope that you continue doing it