Rebel Geeks – The Citizens’ Network

This is a 25 minute video about efforts in Bolivia to gain independence from foreign internet services. They are building, literally from scratch, a local communications infrastructure as well as a direct people-to-people local cloud net.

Rebel Geeks – The Citizens’ Network

This film investigates how Bolivian senator Nelida Sifuentes has led the campaign to restructure the way in which Bolivia and Latin America communicate, and restore power to ordinary citizens.

NelidaSifuentes

The tiny mountainous South American country has one of the world’s slowest Internet connections, but the senator is leading the drive to develop infrastructure and software that will make Bolivia digitally independent.

They want to train up generations of Bolivians who can write code and develop software. They are trying to establish a “sovereign cloud”, independent of international corporate and governmental control, that will protect the country’s data and speed up access and connectivity. Although they both use and support mobile internet platforms, they know that erecting more masts won’t solve the basic problem of structural integrity. They want full technological sovereignty and we are catching them as they build the architecture from the bottom up.

The article summarises the video, but it’s right there to watch…

Rebel Geeks – The Citizens’ Network

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