The Internet has enabled a way of social interaction and connections which facilitate the kinds of action that “make democracy work” (Robert Putnam). It enables freedom of movement up and down the socio-economic and cultural ladder through social participation and human development. It offers economic opportunities and access to public and social services.

On the Internet, everyone can be anyone, and social division becomes a non-issue (though actually new social divisions are constantly being created, on a different level – are you on MySpace or Facebook?). In fact, “on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog” (Peter Steiner’s cartoon). Another joke goes “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to use the Internet and he won’t bother you for weeks.” But that man might rise up to be the next Internet millionaire. Access to the Internet is an instrumental right for the improvement of people’s capability. Missing out restrains personal growth. That’s also why gouvernments provide libraries, and Internet access at libraries. It gives people access to knowledge, but libraries are a less than ideal environment for social interaction. Bringing the Internet closer to the community, closer to home, empowers people to take control of their own social network (online and offline). That’s where Free Australia Wireless fits in. By providing free Internet access, through a shared connection, we try to bridge the social divide in our own community, closest to us. This hardly costs us anything extra, as we already pay for Internet access. This is our small contribution to tackle social poverty.

The growth of social networking and user generated content reflects the deep rooted need of people for self expression, social interaction and peer validation. People sharing without personal financial gain. As they do, others do. Or so we hope anyway.
What are you waiting for, why not get involved?

Reposted from halans.com.

Post from: Free Australia Wireless

Tackling Social Poverty – Blog Action Day

During the 3 days of the workshops, the conference and WebJam 8 we had around 450 unique users and handled 7.2 GB of traffic. One user managed 540 MB traffic on their own … which is a bit unfortunate as we did ask people to go easy on the network and even browse with images turned off, but I’m happy that even with usage like that the network still kept running. 500 unique users on any wireless or free network is already a big load – but even with that high-traffic use the network coped just fine. I used it most of the time with no worries.

We had Meraki nodes scattered throughout the venue … a couple in the foyer, three in the main auditorium (down to two on Friday as one went “missing” on Thursday) and one in 101A.

Also congratulations to @holodigm and @jodiem for winning the two Meraki Minis we gave away to whoever tweeted in the best responses to the question “Why should you win a Meraki and what would you use it for?”. Both pledged to start up free wireless mesh networks. Both of the Merakis we gave away were donated to Free Australia Wireless by Justin Kerr-Stevens.

And another big thanks to Lachlan Hardy and WebJam 8 for sponsoring Free Australia Wireless and paying for the printing of the fliers JJ designed that we gave out at the Web Directions South conference, and thanks to Nick Hodge, Peter Asquith and Gary Barber for helping me put fliers on everyone’s seats during afternoon tea on Friday before Mark Pesce’s presentation.

Post from: Free Australia Wireless

Post-Web Directions South 2008

The Meraki’s handled traffic pretty good, with people playing WoW, watching youTube, surfing, demoing,… with the Meraki’s handling about 50 users and transferring 1.8 Gb over each day.

You can clearly see when lunch was on…

We talked to lots of people, mostly in the hallway, and in our presentation on Saturday we focused on the Meraki Dashboard and its settings. We also had a group discussion on developing meshing software for mobile devices or laptops. And then there was even a presentation on how, with the help of a couple of Merakis, a student circumvented his school’s net censorship… Some people signed up for a group buy (we’ll get back to you soon!).

Sunday afternoon, we had a Meraki Mini to give away to the attendees.

Post from: Free Australia Wireless

Free Australia Wireless at BarCamp