[IDEA] Participatory International Solidarity Network for Digital Cooperatives

Co-ops International Solidarity
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Hi people, I have talking with people from FairBnB and Enspiral and shared an idea to unite the coop movement with the leverage of internet connectivity. The proposal challenges capitalistic philanthropy and social capitalism ecosystems and aims to co-create a counter-power with a cooperative and solidarity logic.

We propose to digital coops around the world to asign a delegate each month who should join an international call. In the call, there are 3 rounds in which each member has around 1-3 time boxed minutes to speak.

(1) At the first round each delegate express what the coop is about.

(2) At the second round each delegate express which is the help that the coop needs. (Financial, human, technical resources or even knowledge).

(3) At the third round each delegate express which is the help that the coop offers. (Financial, human, technical resources or even knowledge).

A facilitator then matches synergy points, and each match share contact details. A note-taker should take notes of the conclusions.

That way, cooperatives can know each other regardless the distance, find out synergy points and coordinate for the common good of the technological cooperative movement. The idea focus on giving the chance to connect, for instance, old-coops with start-coops (how I like to call the worked-owned start-ups) and build from scratch a relationship that enables a new way of doing economics based on internacional solidarity, cooperative markets and participatory planning of resources.

This can help start-coops to validate ideas fast, to offer their services so they fund their project, to connect with experienced coops and learn.

This can help digital coops to expand their network, know-how and tools, to allocate resources aligned on their mission which can be helpful for other coops. We can help coops dealing with adversity due to geo-political situations and so on.

The dynamic repeat consistently at least each month.

If you are interested in what you are reading, I encourage you to read the full open and participatory paper about this:

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Seems cool but I’d be more interested in some kind async participation. Having to coordinate schedules espc internationally is always rough. I like it when you can do something like a wiki or cloud shared mind map.

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Interesting feeback. How about both options voluntary and free? The purpose of having a sync participation is to ensure (A) Consistency and (B) Human connection that a wiki-experience would not facilitate. In addition, for the sake of networking and building inter-cooperative trust, I do think calls tend to be more effective than collaborative experiencies on the cloud.

But, on my mind, I considered also combining it with wikis as we continue with the calls. The calls would be voluntary and free, whichever coop can join, and then that can be complement with async collaboration as follow-up.

What do you think?

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I love the spirit of this! I’m curious whether it could also grow out of the existing regular open calls that are taking place in the ecosystem. Agaric and ICA run these already. Might you be able to make time to attend and discuss the proposal?

cc @freescholar @nicolasdimarco

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Thanks for the comment! Of course, I do think we can take the call initiatives we already have and maybe, framed them more methodically to ensure consistency and incremental progress as we keep up with the calls. As you may saw already in the document, I have a quite “pragmatic” vision for this dynamic. :slight_smile:

You can surely count on me for the Agaric/ICA calls so we brainstorm how we can make it happen.

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Btw, for the “cloud-based” follow up collaboration, do you recommend any wiki service in particular? I love, for instance, the one used by the P2P foundation: https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/

Thanks in advance peers.

Let’s co-operate! :wink:

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Wow - I have been talking with fairbnb too! about my project -
http://solidarityhousing.org

In Solidarity,

Micky Metts
Agaric ~ FreeScholar
https://agaric.coop - We are your Cooperative Tech Ally.
Join Agaric on IRC any time - irc.freenode.net in the #devs-r-us channel

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Hi!

Since the beginning of this year we have been working on a similar goal. Our actions are aimed at generating a network of tech co-ops at a global level.

We helped with the creation of a small network of cooperatives in several countries and little by little new cooperatives are being added.

We can coordinate a call to continue talking about this idea. Generating a space, achieving continuity and participation is not easy, but if we collaborate among some cooperatives we will undoubtedly be able to achieve it.

All the best,

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That’s brilliant work Nico! Sure, I’m in for the call. In addition, I invite you to check the document to we explore points of synergy, specially so we built in what is already going on. I talked about this idea with some people from Resonate, Enspiral and CoopExchange. (I said FairBnb at the first post, I meant Resonate :D)

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Peers, with Natalia from Enspiral, we created a Loomio channel to continue the discussion and make it happen: https://www.loomio.org/international-solidary-network

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I invite you people to introduce yourself in the loomio group :wink: https://www.loomio.org/d/foC6nMPX/introduce-yourself

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