Community Networks Stories: Experiences from Co-creating a Local Knowledge Network
Insights on co-creating local knowledge networks to support communities in establishing and maintaining their digital infrastructure.
Written for the Association for Progressive Communications, this piece shares insights from the experience of co-creating local knowledge networks- the messy, collaborative process of helping communities establish and maintain their own digital infrastructure.
The article draws on fieldwork in rural India, where “community network” means something different from its usual technical definition. Here, networks are not just about connectivity but about the social relationships, trust, and shared knowledge that make infrastructure meaningful- a theme explored in practice through the Bidar mesh network project. The piece reflects on what it takes to support communities in building these layers together, and the principles we developed around Community Owned Wifi-Mesh grew directly from this work. Alongside infrastructure, we also experimented with community-driven content creation tools like Jingle Tales and Webinar Pi to help participants claim ownership over these networks.