Mesh/Communities

Key

+ = contact(s)

! = rooftop(s)

$ = interested in a space

Italics are relevant musings.

Locations

See also prospective node map

• West Oakland*!$
• San Antonio*!
• Adam's Point*!
• Ghost Town*!
• Piedmont*
• Oakland 5th Ave Marina*!

Schools

Resilient communication; internship opportunities; mentorship

• Laney College*$
• Talk to Hilary Naylor [Oakland Unified School District]

Libraries

Hooking up library catalogs would be rad... and libraries are the last bastion of nurturing public spaces.

• Talk to Ivan

Public Areas

Public wifi on the streets and in parks

• Lake Merritt
• Mosswood Recreation Center in Mosswood Park.

Cohousing Communities

Hyperlocal economies/sharing/barter/timebank; resilient communication tools; neighborhood watch; storytelling

• Swan's Market
• Hidden Creek
• Mariposa Grove
• Temescal Commons
• Temescal Creek
• Triple Point

Urban Farms & Community Gardens

Hook up sensors to be informed eg; if garden needs water, coordinate shifts, info on plant care, cropswap coordination...

• Official list of community gardens in Oakland
• The People's Grocery
• Phat Beets
• City Slicker Farms
• Ghost Town Farms

Farmer's Markets

Announcing special kinds of produce / advertising healthy local food and crafts/vendors

• Oakland Wiki has a great list!

Groups

Organizations Working to End the Digital Divide

It may be possible to get seed funding or community outreach help from organizations that are working to end the "digital divide."

• FCC Connect America Fund - FCC initiative to expand broadband to underserved communities. Budget up to $4.5 billion per year. https://www.fcc.gov/general/connect-america-fund-caf
• FCC National Broadband Plan - A policy-making initiative of the FCC to expand internet access - https://www.fcc.gov/general/national-broadband-plan
• HUD Connect Home - US Government program through Housing and Urban Development to bring cheap ($10 per month) broadband to underserved areas using existing ISPs - http://connecthome.hud.gov/
• Everyone On - NGO - working to bring affordable 4G service to undeserved communities in the United States - $1.8 million per year in income. Headquartered in Washington DC. http://everyoneon.org/
• Close The Gap - NGO - Mostly focused on providing computers and internet to the developing world. €6.3 million in assets. Headquartered in Belgium. http://close-the-gap.org/
• Computers for Everyone - Menlo Park, CA based NGO working to provide reused computers to low income community members - http://www.computersforeveryone.org/
• Computers For Classrooms - Chico, CA based NGO working to provide reused computers to low income community members - http://www.computersforclassrooms.org/
• Computers 4 Kids - Sacramento, CA based NGO working to provide reused computers to low income community members - http://www.c4kca.org/

Local Businesses

Free wifi attracts new people; community bulletin boards; local media streams

• SoleSpace*!
• Taco trucks!
• Give a presentation to the Oakland Rotary Club: http://www.oakland-rotary.org/
• Give a presentation to the Berkeley Rotary Club: http://berkeleyrotary.org/

Hacker/Makerspaces

DIY instructables; Microcontroller projects; developing application; community media; community bulletin boards to promote classes and events; find tools / skilled people / projects

• sudo room*!$
• Liberating Ourselves Locally*!
• The Crucible*!
• Ace Monster Toys*!?$
• Hacker Moms*!?
• Nimby Space!
• Counter Culture Labs*!$

Community Media

Local streams from community spaces that foster self-expression, art and politics; archives and zine library; radio podcasts;

• Youth Radio*!
• Oakland North*
• Oakland Local*
• AK Press
• Inkworks
• Slingshot
• Timeless, Infinite Light*
• PM Press

Non-Profits

By Donation-based gift economies and lending libraries; solidarity organizing; "craigslist free and de facto locally-relevant"

• Urban Strategies*!
• Oakland Technology Exchange West*! - Tons of equipment for building computers, which they then give away/work-trade to local youth who need them!
• Oakland Workers' Collective - Day laborers organization.
• The Grassroots House - Workspace for radical organizers. In Berkeley.
• Youth Uprising
• The Long Haul*! - Infoshop.
• Urban Habitat
• Techbridge - supporting girls in science and technology
• [www.lbcenter.org Lions Center for the Blind] - Assistive reading technologies; CCTV & Braile writer lending library. Founded in the 1930s.

Collectives

Community events/gathering organizing; skill-sharing; documentation

• A PLACE for Sustainable Living*! - Permaculture mecca located at 1121 64th St in Oakland.
• Rock Paper Scissors Collective*!? - Arts collective and neighbor-friend of sudo's.
• Sustaining Ourselves Locally*! - Food justice collective and neighbor-friend of LOL's.
• The Holdout*!
• The Vulcan*!

Worker-Owned Cooperatives

Self-organizing and coordination tools; hyperlocal economies;

• Design Action Collective*!
• Radical Designs*!
• Arizmendi!
• Mandela Foods Cooperative!
• DIG Cooperative

Projects

These projects are headed by friend's of the mesh group and could plug in in some really interesting ways:

• Nerds for Nature*
• Oakland Wiki*
• BACE Timebank*$
• Sun Synchony*!
• Open Oakland*
• East Bay Prisoner Support
• Timelist Group*$
• Rad Brains - Radical mental health collective. #mutualaid

No contacts, but seem interesting:

• Groundscore Collective - Public art.

Ideas

• Talk to landlords who own a fair number of properties.
• Find folks who might be interested in doing curriculum development for getting kids engaged in community media.
• How to remain the anti-Ingress? http://searchengineland.com/ingress-googles-ar-game-a-stealth-local-data-effort-175417
• More psychogeographic explorations of the urban landscape in which we live and move
  • Integrate with bioblitz (NFN).
• Housing projects?
• Put a post on NextDoor for each neighborhood - http://nextdoor.com

ToDos

• Do a presentation/focus group at LOL
• Make contacts at schools and libraries
• Pitch the mesh at an upcoming Open Oakland monthly general meeting
• curriculum development

Maps of High Demand Areas

Areas where people bike and run - based on Strava Data

Areas where people take photos - based on Sightmaps

Homes with fiber to the end user - based on Broadband.gov

Map of the Backbone Fiber, Data Centers and Free Wifi in Oakland and Berkeley

Map of the East Bay

Key:

Red Lines = Existing backbone fiber optic lines in the East Bay

Red Dots = Data Centers connected the the internet backbone (which can be used for future exit nodes)

Green Dots = Existing Relay Nodes with internet access

Blue Dots = Existing Mesh Nodes without internet access

Light Gray Dots = Locations with free wifi (which could become future relay nodes)

Dark Gray Dots = Locations that would benefit from free internet