Name: Nicolas Andres Pace

Organisation: AlterMundi

Country: Argentina

Stakeholder Group: Civil Society Organisation

Thematic Area: Access

Session Title: LibreRouter: A Router for Community Networks by Community Networks

Session Format: TECH DEMOS (FLEXIBLE) (60/90 MINS)

Co-organizers Name (if any):

Speakers Name: Nicolas Andres Pace

Speaker Status: Confirmed

Relevance of the issue with specified session theme: For many years communities that wanted to deploy their own Community Networks struggled through a big mud of technicalities to build their networks. Because of that, few successful networks have arisen that are actually community owned and run. We believed that so we got into the task of creating an Open Software and Open Hardware Router made by the Communities, for the Communities.

Content of the session (Objective of the session): LibreRouter is the Router for Community Networks. It is a self-deployable, self-configuring and self-managed mesh router for geek-free community networks that anyone can use, with no technical experience. During this session we will go through the features that LibreRouter provides for Community networks.

Please describe how you will use your speakers and how their views/ perspectives /expertise will be included in the session: Nicolas Pace is a core developer of the LibreRouter project and has been involved in outreach activities for the last year regarding community networks. His background will be a central part of the Technical Demo because of his deep involvement in the project.

How are you bringing diversity in your proposed session whether it is relevant to the specified theme? This technology allows anyone, no matter having technical background or not, to deploy networks by themselves. By means of Community Networks communities are able to extend the reach of ICT where there were any before. That means that many more networks will help more women and men the chance to get connectivity, and citizens that were restricted to get connectivity by physical boundaries may now get it through wireless reach. Also, it will allow people to provide themselves with ICT instead of expecting someone else to provide it for them.

Relevant Tags (Minimum 3 tags) community networks, mesh, digital empowerment