Words of Wisdom from Harold Feld

A couple of weekends ago, I was at the National Summit for Community Wireless Networks, Sascha Meinrath’s wonderful conference (the second one, in fact) where I met and worked with Community Wireless organizers from around the country (and around the world, too). The event was inspiring. There are so many ways that people are using wireless technologies to help each other and to connect their local communities.

One of the most important aspects of the work we do is that, unlike traditional broadband, CWNs engage local community members and connect people to each other—as opposed to connecting individuals to commerce and media consumption. There is richness and diversity to the ways that people solve local problems and create new media and avenues for its interaction. CWNs inspire people—not just technologists, but moms and dads, students and teachers, grandparents and grandchildren alike—to discover each other.

I’ve always said that Community Wireless Networks are about community first and technology second. This years Summit drove home that point.

Here are some photos from the event:


More Flickr photos tagged with NS4CWN

Harold Feld wrote up his closing remarks from the event, and I would suggest everyone read them to get a sense for the importance of the work we do:

Because our struggle to make a better world must be a universal struggle. One that changes and betters the lives of everyone, not just the techie elite or the chosen few believers. If there is one failing of the “open source” movement that has crippled it more than anything, it is the failure to understand that real movements help everyone. As long as open source coders see themselves as separate from everyone else, because they will always be able to get around the legal and regulatory restrictions and the rest of the world that’s too stupid to figure it out can go hang, they will remain marginal. Because the vast majority of people cannot figure this out, and therefore do not see why they should care.

We must always remember that wireless is a tool, not a goal in itself. What we do has value because it changes peoples lives for the better. Wireless doesn’t create jobs or educational opportunities on its own. It gives people a new way to get information, to create new kinds of speech or applications, and share these applications with others. We can’t just “unwire” neighborhoods or throw up nodes or write code. We need to reach out to the communities around us, show them what they can do, give them what they need, then let go when they take it in completely different directions.