Does anyone know of any tech co-ops based in the US, specifically the Seattle area? Code-Operative got an email from a dev there who had seen our site (I don’t know how) and was interested in joining one
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I’d suggest asking on the tech-coop email list, this list grew into the Tech Co-op Network of North American Technology Worker Cooperatives some years ago, but it is an open list anyone can join.
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Thanks very much! I’ll take a look now
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Hi, I’m Nicolás, member of Fiqus [0], a cooperative based in Buenos Aires and Patagonia. We are associated to FACTTIC, as well as our friends of Cambá @solverniers and @Neto.
A few weeks ago we started making contact with cooperatives from other countries, that’s how we got to chat today with colleagues from “The Developer society” [1].
Today while I was talking to @Neto about the call we had with the cooperative “The Developer society”, he told me about this site and here I am, with my profile already created and very happy to participate. I hope that soon we can organize a virtual meeting to strengthen cooperative international relations!
Best!
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Hi Nico!! we are happy to have you here!! And happy to have more members of FACTTIC making contact with international coops in tech industry!
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Hi to all. I am member of the same collective as @hng. After 35c3 meetings with cotech I decided to join here as well. Thx for hosting this forum. Didn’t know where to start, but thought this is a good threat.
We are building up a tech coop network in the german speaking areas.
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@solverniers Your federation in Argentina sound quite interesting, I’d be happy to get to know your project more. In Germany we are currently four tech coops in our network. We mostly focus on software development, consulting and DevOps (mainly free software and web stuff). We discussed that it would be good to be more open to more areas e.g. design and discussed that something like shared accounting would be great. What are the areas in your federation?
35c3
At the 35c3 we identified a few action points for working on international exchange:
- Create a zine, wiki etc. about tech coops and different projects in different countries. Share knowledge, solutions to common questions etc.
- Use the CoTech “International Solidarity” forum for communication (for now).
- Do a video call for international exchange in the next 1-2 months.
There will be a report/blog post from the meetings at 35c3 at some time.
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That all sounds very positive 
.
Of course you are most welcome to use this forum forever and we are very happy to be hosting discussions with tech co-ops outside the UK here, but, at some point in the future, if it is opened up (there is a thread on making it public), using the ICA Discourse server might make more sense for some things.
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Hi @hng !! Sorry for the delay…this days to start the year have been really busy…
We received the visit of @Kayleigh here at our cooperative in Buenos Aires!! @nicolasdimarco join us for a meeting altogether.
We really enjoy her visit and make our relationship stronger to go for projects together… We hope that in the nearly future you visit us also or we visit you as well.
A pic with a few of us… @neto is at the pic (i took it)
We speak about our federation and how we face inter-cooperative projects. We have been working in this kind of project for a long time and now we are trying to make a king of incubator process: help others to gain their economy sustainability (and being more cooperatives)
We have a commission in the federation that is focus on that and we meet each other monthly and also we have a channel to let us know if there’s a chance to work together
I will create a topic with this to explain it in detail.
I’m really curios about the coops in Germany since I have the idea that in your country there is a lot of participation at companies and that labor rights are really cool .(I’m a researcher of “future of work” and technology perspectives at labor in the Technology Union here in Argentina. I don 't have a lot of information about Germany, but last year a researcher of there visit us and tell me that)…
About the areas: we are FACTTIC, means that technology, innovation and knowledge could be there. And we have different coops that provides tailored software, professional services (backend, frontend…), DevOps, design, digital communication strategies and so and.
Now we are adding a new coop that also provides video and animations.
Also I imagine in a future that a coops focus at testing (like the core of the business) or content translations will be a cool addition to our federations. For now, we didn’t fin them here 
I only find this… 35c3 - Labitat
Is that? sounds like a hacklab (at Cambá we found it one in a University , and we are participating of other space … probably we will give a talk about technology and cooperativism)
I love the idea of a zine 
Let’s make the video call !!
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I will add my force for discussion there…but I really feel better sharing information here at CoTech at least as I feel more confident at Patio…
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Hello everyone!
As @solverniers said, I participated in the meeting in Cambá.
Knowing @Kayleigh was great and hearing about Cotech and its similarities with FACTTIC was really interesting.
If a call is arranged again, I will be there.
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hi @solverniers
the work you and your federation are doing sound super interesting. I’d be glad to get to know more! Getting our coops to gain economic sustainability is our main project at the moment (besides getting our structure into this new phase). How long does FACTTIC already exist? I am so curious and want to know more.
I am sorry that the 35c3 reference was a bit euro centric. 35c3 was the 35th. Chaos Communication Congress. This is one of the main yearly events in Europe for all sorts of hacker, activists etc. There are a lot of talks about different topics (that you can find online) but also a lot of space to hang out, work on projects and party 
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FACTTIC is a project that started at 2010, but was founded at 2012 because the legal part was made at that year. More or less, we are 19/20 cooperatives and at least 380 professionals working on them.
Gain economic sustainability is one of the crucial steps that we usually focus at when a cooperative is being founded. We are fighting as a different form to work and live against freelance and entrepreneurship culture (and big companies, of course). We try that everyone that is starting at the cooperative and has clients bring them for everyone at the cooperative. Otherwise you are creating the competition instead of cooperation.
Also is important to have all your incomes from the cooperative. If you still mix it with another job is hard to focus and make stronger your collective. Are you all living from the cooperative? Do you have a commercial role to get projects?
I didn’t post our workflow of intercooperativism because I have to translate it and i dont find the time. 
promise I will post that.
I mentioned 35c3 at Cambá and some associates know it and started to discuss about that, last year we made a donation for a hacklab, and we are really into activism, hackerspaces and security stuff.
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Here’s a Finnish tech worker cooperative, I’m not involved with it but can contact them if needed.
Here’s their description:
“ExpertOS is a worker cooperative and a community of professionals that produce a diverse range of ICT services for businesses. You can either strengthen your team with an expert of ours or order a whole project from us. Members of the cooperative represent the cooperative and market the services and know-how provided by our community.”
La Guilde sounds awesome!
They bring “together 162 independent studios that employ nearly 2,200 people, making it the largest video game co-op in the world” (from Desjardins supports Quebec video game co-operative with $750,000 - Co-operative News )
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Although see also the criticism on this thread: i.e. that the workers in the studios themselves have no say.
Hi everyone!
I’d add Coop IT Easy, we use Odoo to help coops and association in Belgium and Europe.
And also our friends from Barcelona: CoopDev.
Have a good one!
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Hi @robin.keunen ,
thats super interesting! We almost did something with odoo and one of the coops in our network is doing some work with odoo I think.
Also check out the other thread on a video call to connect all those tech-coops popping up.
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That sounds great… Do you have any information about tech cooperatives in Belgium? @robin.keunen Are you part of Coop IT Easy? Do you know another coop there?
I m really into make contact with experience in that country, since part of my family born there and I have contacts at the community and the embassy here in Argentina.