 We are going to meet Javi and Deboa. They will tell us about community networks in South America and remote communities. We're talking about telephone networks, I think. And when you are in the middle of nowhere and you don't have any landlines or mobile phones, why not just roll your own? And they will tell us now how to do that and what difficulties they faced. Welcome. Thank you. They will tell us now. I hope you are listening. You can hear me. So, to start in the name of the group, I'd like to thank the organizers for the space to present our work. And also thank CCC Cologne and Ziegen who supported this workshop. I'd like to use the opportunity also that we are part of this cybernetic aristocracy and ask us to reflect how the principles of hacker ethics can engage with this talk. So, we are a group of five speakers divided in three presentations. First, Elania and I will talk about the community network called ConnectBV. It's located in a rural community in the Amazon rainforest. Javi will talk from Oaxaca, Mexico, and we will talk about the telecomunicaciones indígenas comunitarias. And Ania Orlova, who will talk about Abradik, where they promote the implementation of digital radio in Brazil. So, Elania and I are from Brazil, and I'm doing my PhD in Ziegen here in Germany, where my research topic is about the use of digital technology in rural communities and how does it affect local and peripheral economies. Elania is finishing her undergrad as a social assistance. So, peripheral means away from the center and Akara is peripheral from the capital of the state. You can see on this map. It is also a place of an explorative relationship at the margins of the capitalism. I'm trying to pass the... So, next slide is not going. So, in Akara, I was just... I want to see... Oh, that's having our sort of vortragen verloren. It looks like we have lost connection to our speaker. Let's see if we can fix that. I think I'm back. There she is. At least I hear her. The video is not yet there. Very sturdy German internet infrastructure. Thank you. So sorry. I don't know what happened. So, in Akara, the natural and ecological resources are the main source of its sustenance. This is one of the activities that is the production of cassava flower. They plant, harvest and produce many products out of the cassava. Yeah, so. But they also produce more than 20 types of roots and herbs used for perfumes and spiritual baths in the community and also in the capital. More than 15 years ago, a big international cosmetic corporation approached the community to buy local herbs in large quantities to use in their products. So today, the organic producers of Akara sell around 50 tons of herbs and roots in their natural state each year. So besides all the beauty of their diverse, plural and traditional way of living, basic service lacking like sewage, garbage collection, telecommunication, former education. And in the middle of these issues, the main concern was internet. So we decided to think about and work on to bring internet infrastructure. I have some pictures to show how was the process. So, first I documented and some ways of communication like they built this hill so they would have a better connectivity. And this is Lucia. She's on a rainy day trying to contact her doctor or someone in the capital. And she has to be in this hill with umbrella trying to communicate. The next picture is father of Eleni. And he has a business and he found his spot to send the transactions collecting with his credit card machine. This is also interesting when walking through the forest is surprising to stumble across a random plastic chair and it indicates that if you sit and wait, you can might have internet signal in that place. If you see closely, you can see there is a person in pink and this is Vanda. She sells cosmetic online and here she is on the road waiting for the internet signal to work to communicate with her clients. So, but how could we bring internet? So, we found this abandoned tower that is in the picture is in the harbor. And we also talked to two universities, FBI and ETA. We got some fund. We got some volunteers, activists interested in deploying the internet. So, we managed to implement and nowadays we have eight points of free internet in the school, health center and the association of organic producers. We would like also to combine academic and traditional knowledge. So, we built this bamboo tower as an experiment. It's not working like we had to put it down and we had to put made out of metal. So, this is the configuration. I'm not talking so much about the technological part. But the first tower you can see is where the university FBI is. In the middle is the one in the harbor. And the last one is the one in the association, the building of the association of organic producers. So, in two years, the team of four people from the community, two undergrad, Lorena and Moací activists, we engaged in exchanging knowledge during these years. And this is Kaka, Bo, Bia and Eleni. And they are workers of the community network ConnectBV. They work hard not only to deploy and maintain the internet working but also to defend the replacement of their homes by power lines and roads. They also feel the pressure to move away from the forest because of formal education and better condition of life. But they want to resist to the process of cultural externalization. Well, we are really proud of this knowledge exchange, but we are afraid that this can be an instrument of domination. What is the time needed to the application? Is it really a way of empowerment? Is this enough? Why teaching how to use the technology is more important than helping them to create their own? And how to make it in a different way? Based on Álvaro Vieira Pinto who says that technology within hierarchical society will tend to reinforce hierarchy and domination. I think that Facebook, SpiceX, Google are promising internet in the Amazon region and this prevalence of large U.S.-based companies in providing internet access across the globe has been portrayed as a form of digital colonialism, especially in areas where government lack resources or political will to provide public infrastructure. And I see the need to critique imaginaries. I'm not sure if you still listen to me, but I think we need to critique imaginaries such as Silicon Valley companies. These cybernetic community members are now entrepreneurs and with the facility of digital access and extra time available, they feel the pressure that they should work more. So I will talk about this process of working more. There is this opportunity of selling cosmetics through catalog and in contracts to produce cassava and herbs. Selling cosmetics is a new economic activity in Nacara. Most of cosmetics consultants and customers are human women. These consultants serve as middle women of cosmetics that are displayed in a catalog that customers choose from. In the past, consultants had exclusive license to sell these products using a physical magazine, but more recently, most companies have open online shops where everybody can purchase their cosmetics. No more magazines or papers. However, many still prefer to buy via consultants or are actually reliant on them as they lack access to the infrastructure and I will plan it better. This region and the islands around it all lack zip codes and postal service. So the consultants had to be creative with the logistics of selling cosmetics. Each consultant ordered the cosmetics online and uses different trustful contacts to make it happen. Some use the address of relatives in the capital, but they have to travel to the capital to collect the order they are shipped there and deliver it to the client. The travel costs are not added to the product's price so she pays from her own pocket around five euros per month. Some other consultants work closely with someone else in the city that takes care of the logistics and people usually are not interested in learning how to use the internet. Other consultants use the address of business or restaurants or families and friends where the postal service is reached and inform their clients that the product has arrived in a specific place so the clients can collect. So this activity takes a lot of effort from the consultant. However, it is not considered a business. It is a way of helping with the income of the family and sometimes a way for women to be less financially dependent on their husbands. Vanessa, who is also citizen science and helped me with my academic research on cosmetic and cassava products through her WhatsApp status. So she discovered in this picture that I took that in the corner of her room she can receive the orders from her clients and communicate with them. This is an example of WhatsApp status that is really common from the people from the village in Yacara. They promote their catalog, their products, the services and WhatsApp is their favorite app in Brazil in the world but specifically in Brazil because telecoms do not charge for data used to access WhatsApp. This story about the catalog shows the complexity of such community network interventions. It shows that the technology is only a small part of the infrastructure of anything that is done with the internet. There is a social infrastructure of community life and lack of other infrastructures such as zip codes. It also shows that connectivity does not equal good as the social infrastructure. There are big challenges for communities like Yacara and their future and what they want their life to be. Connectivity brings new opportunities but also problems. One thing Paul said to make me make this very clear and this is Paul. Is this really complicated at the same time that we want to be in the age of digital technology we want to have that connection to the past but we could not reach the border between the two times where we can use the knowledge of the past and of the present and how can we make them pride of their knowledge as for example the work that community of Javi in Oaxaca will show. This is just a picture that I would like to share with you. It's a company. They produce aluminium and renewable energy from Norway and to make this company work they need a lot of electricity and for that they build dams in the Amazon and they also have to pass these power lines and to connect the dams to the mining company. So now we're going to go to Eleni that's just going to show how is it in the community and also how does it pass in the community. I'm not sure if Eleni is here. Eleni, can you stay online? Hi. So this is Eleni and she will show. Can you put your video Eleni? No, she won't. She's saying she's blocked. You want to try again? So she's having some problems to make her video. But I think while she's trying to make this maybe we can pass to Javi and then once we figure out Javi, are you ready? I'm going to just change here. Hi, my name is Javier. I'm originally from Oaxaca, Mexico. Hi, my name is Javier and I'm originally from Oaxaca, Mexico. I work in an organization called Telecomunicaciones Indígenas Comunitarias Community Indigenous Telecomunication. So this has an origin in different projects, Rizomática, Comunicadas y muy alejadas. Oaxaca has 570 municipalities. There are 17 municipalities that have a lot of communities. So this has an origin in different projects, in different municipalities. There are 17 language spoken there and the communities are really dispersed and sometimes uncommunicated. So our organization has an historical agreement or concession as being indigenous. It was a pilot concession that about 21 communities joined and sent a letter to the government. Before we had a pilot agreement 21 communities joined together and wrote letter to the government so that they could have access to some frequency. Now we have a concession to make use of telecommunications for 30 years and a concession of frequency use of 850 megahertz, especially for GSM at this time, which is 15 years and Oaxaca has 5 states in the country. So now we have a concession and agreement for 30 years for the use of telecommunication and also another concession or agreement for 15 years for the use of the frequency of the 850 megahertz GSM that is going to cover 5 states. We have a broad coverage. We joined 17 communities where approximately 4,600 people live in 80 places. So how does this works? Well, we have a tower in the outside that connects to the office in the community where it connects to get the information through the connection through the antennas. The long distance calls work through the voice over IP protocol over the internet. We also use local providers for satellite internet but although the internet is not very good. Local calls or messages only work throughout communities because we don't have so many numbers. 25 pesos for the community 60 percent, 15 pesos 35 percent for the organization 2 pesos for an emergency fund in case of problems caused by the climate or some damage to some equipment. The first is 25 pesos that are for the community 15 pesos for the organization and 2 pesos for an emergency fund which is used in case of climate issues or natural disasters. We use free software and open source software and we promote the use of free tools and the movement of free software. So what are our main challenges? First is the conditions of the terrain of the land and the climate the dispersion of the communities among themselves and the few resources that they have the communities to acquire new equipment. Other challenges that have been awakened in interest among younger people that there is no big community to share experiences such as the case of the technology of Wi-Fi and to generate some contents that are easy to access for all the people so that the knowledge among the communities can grow. So any other challenges that we have are the expansion scheme that we plan outside the state of Oaxaca to the country. The use of concessionate frequencies or these frequencies that are regulated by the authorities. Other challenges have been the creation of some digital literacy among the communities so that they know how the computer works or how the network works and so on and the limited connectivity in some places. So what are the challenges that we have to deal with with the limited connectivity in some places in some regions you don't have any three megabytes of download capacity? So in our future, our future plans will be doing tests and installations of LTE and the LTE network for G. So right now we are using some software tools from Osmocom which are helping us to build for G and now I would like to thank them and all the people that are working directly or indirectly with the project that are allowing us to do our jobs. So which way can we get support? One is to get development and improve the tools that we have to call for developers for doing that. So we have other ways to generate proposals or send us proposals of tools for internal networks in communities that we can promote. You can also help us giving us hints about tools that we can use for building internal networks in the communities. And also you can provide proposals for improving privacy and security in these networks and in these communities. If you want to talk to us, you can look at these websites from TIC Technologies Indígenas Comunidades and Resomatica. You can write us an email and you can also check the code that we're working with at the Github shown there. Now I'm going to show you a video. I hope that you like it. It's ready. While we check the video, Elaine, do you want to show us? How do I put the camera behind? I'm not sure. I don't know. So she's trying. So she's going to visit there. So this is the tower. This is the tower. The school. She's showing the internet point. This is the road. The power line that pass on top of the village. That's the tower. That's the tower. That's the health center. That's the health center where there is one more internet point. That's the health center where there is one more internet point. And that's it. Thank you. She's saying that it's too hot. Okay. Do we have the video to show? Wait, I don't know what I thought. I'm done. Oh no, it's missing here. At any time you can put the video if you want. But she's showing the school inside of the school. This is the school. I just couldn't find the key from that room, but I'm going to show you the internet equipment. She didn't get the key, but that's the door where the equipments are inside of this room. So every time she needs to configure or restart a computer, she needs to get the key in the house of someone to come and do it. She's asking for the key, but. Thank you. So maybe should we start with Anya and then we show the video. Hello, I hope you can all hear me well. My name is Anya. I'm originally from the last five years have been based in Brazil. And I've been working with a group of activists that later took shape of a Brazilian association on digital radio. And today I will tell you a story of the development and implementation of high-frequency telecommunication systems in Brazil. So high-frequency radios is a two-way telephony radius, or in Portuguese it's called hageofonia, is a point-to-multipoint broadcasting that allows every station in the network to receive and transmit communication among each other. So that means that if one radio station in the network is talking or the other radio stations can hear and they can also communicate back. Here on this picture, you can see an example of the radio station that is very commonly used in the Amazon region of Brazil. And you can see also people actually talking on the radio. Okay. Just a second. So the high frequency is a synonym for the term shortwave in the context of radio bands. Here you can see some more pictures of the installation and workshops or training that was given to the communities in the Amazon forest that was done within one of the projects that our association carried out in 2016. I didn't really give an introduction. I will first talk about the high-frequency radios in the Amazon context and then I will present the sequence of the projects which led to the development of the high-frequency system that is currently being used by some of the forest and traditional communities and also that is the current state of heart of the civilian use of high-frequency radios in the Brazilian Amazon. Okay, so next. So here you can see an example of the installation of the high-frequency radio station. It consists of the radio itself, of the battery that powers it and of the solar panel. And as Debra already talked, within the Amazon context as there is no infrastructure or no electricity grid or any source of energy these radio stations are powered by the solar panel. So the installation of the solar panel is one of the first steps of the setup of the station. And I also forgot to mention there is also an antenna for the transmission and reception of the signal. So this project that is already going on for since I joined for over five years initially started in 2013 and it started in the state of Acre in Brazil. The name of the project is Phônia Juruá Digital Radio Network and the project initially was based on the request of 24 local forests and rural communities. This request was initially formulated by these communities in 2009-2010 and it was specifically articulated that these communities want radio telephony or hadios ponies. It took some time to get the funding to purchase the equipment and the first attempts were taken around 2014 to go to that area and to start the installation of the first stations. And until today this project is ongoing. It's a collaboration, it's a collaborative effort between the local communities of the Alta Juruá Extractive Reserve in the state of Acre and between radio activists and researchers from various Brazilian universities for example from Unicampi, UNESCO, University of Brasilia. So it's still an ongoing effort to develop a communication infrastructure in the rainforest areas of the Brazilian Amazon. And the main idea or the framework is that it's a do-it-yourself autonomous wireless community network, if to sum it up. And here you can see, I tried to put the main points, not to take too much time about the socioeconomic and political background of these areas. Today I will talk about, I will start, I will start talking about the Acre, one of the states of Brazilian Amazon and I will also talk about the state of Pará where another project is based. But I think that what Deborah has already presented, the setup or the context is very similar. So one of the main characteristics that we have to highlight is that there is no electricity grid or there is no any sort of telephony infrastructure. There is no mobile coverage. So for example, in case of Deborah's project, there is a periphery where people still manage to receive some signal. The projects that I will present today were talking about communities located in the forest of Brazilian Amazon. The only communication or transportation connection of the communication mean is the rivers. So people get to their villages or to their settlements by boats and there is literally there is nothing else. There is no wires, there is no electricity. So we are not even talking about mobile coverage. At the same time, the only communication mean is the satellite communication or satellite connectivity, which is extremely expensive in that context. So it's not affordable and it's not an option. And another aspect that became very urgent in the last years is the lack of stable basic support from the states. For example, there is no medical or educational services or health services that people can rely on. And often, for example, children that have to go to school, they are supposed to be picked up by boats to be taken to the school. This connection doesn't work for various reasons. For example, there might be no petrol for the boats or the boat has broken or other reasons. And the same goes for the health assistance of medical assistance. So often people are forced to move out of the forest areas to the urban areas just to be able to receive the most vital and the most basic assistance or services. This is to also show the lifestyle or how people live inside those forest communities. And when I talk about forest communities, I talk about both indigenous communities and about traditional communities. Traditional communities are those who moved many years ago to these areas for the production of rubber when it was still a big industry in Brazil and who settled in these areas. So we cannot really say that these are the people who relocated from other parts of Brazil, but during this time they also mixed with the indigenous people. So they're not really, maybe not a good way to say it, but they're not 100% Brazilian anymore. So we cannot really identify them as indigenous, but they're also not really, it's like a mix of what happened during these years. And you can see on the picture on the left, there is a gun which is very common for every house in the forest community. Because men go to hunt almost every day. And on the right, you can see the stove. That's how usually the food is prepared in the houses by using wood and it's put on fire and then it's cooked. So the conditions are very basic. And at the same time, what I wanted to show with these pictures is that people spend a lot of time attaining to their needs of providing food, cooking, and taking care of other necessities like washing, for example, cleaning dishes. If we compare it to our modern life, these responsibilities take much more time in comparison to urban setup, urban settings. Here you can see a girl, she's reading one of her class books. So there is access, as I already mentioned, the materials, there's access to educational materials, etc. But it's often the case that children stay at home and don't receive the necessary amount of classes that they're supposed to receive. And at the same time, you can see that the environment of the house is very simple. It's usually made out of one tree. Usually there is one big tree that is assigned to a family that they cut and they managed to build a whole house with three or four rooms. So to reflect a bit more on socio-economic impact of these HF connectivity projects. The local community members are asking for this type of assistance, not just with connectivity, but also with sustainable extraction with farming and various forms of businesses. And also to receive health and medical assistance, access to education, and sometimes capacity building. Due to poor local services, the network would provide assistance and supplementary content to local teachers and doctors. And there are examples already in some of the communities that we work with, that teachers from the schools and nurses are engaging actively into the use of the network to receive more information and to be able to communicate to the urban centers over the network. There is also the network is capable of connecting families in the forest with the urban areas and provide access and exchange of political and economical information such as news, prices of various products that are being usually sold from the forest to the urban areas. And what became very urgent recently in the last years is the request to have this sort of communication infrastructure for the monitoring of illegal activities. Right now, Amazon is going through, I would say, environmental crisis. And there are a lot of cases of illegal logging, illegal mining and extreme forms of extractivism, when people are saying that there are so many people from the urban areas coming to hunt various species of the animals from the forest. That people that the forest communities often start to sense the lack of food for themselves. So to be able to monitor these activities and report them to the authorities, the system proved already to be very helpful. Sorry, I'll just bring some water. So to sum up a bit on the first project that started in Acre, I can say that what we did with after some trials and after some trips to installation of the stations. In 2016, we were successful, we would manage to successfully accomplish trials with the digital transmission system based on digital radio Mondial standard. And the solution for digital transmission is composed by an embedded computer and interface to the radio and the SDR software. And what we managed to do in 2016 in Acre is we managed to send text files and images over the radio in the 80M HF band to two locations that were apart around 100 kilometers. So we basically managed to transmit data over HF radio digital data. And I wanted just to say that the project, this solution, yeah, I think I really said that, sorry. So this first project that is based in Acre was supported by the university, by UNESCO. It's a university, a Brazilian university. It started, this support by the university, this project started as an academic project and the academic framework since 2014. And already since 2015, that six radio stations have been irregularly used by the local communities without any major problems or discrepancies. And in 2016, these trials were accomplished and the first successful trials were accomplished that we managed to transmit digital data on a big distance. One thing that I forgot to mention is that the project always has one main station in the urban area, which serves as a gateway to all the forest communities. To provide assistance and support. Okay, so in 2017, we started working with other communities in the state of Pará, in Altamira and also located in the Extractive Reserves. Extractive Reserves is a concept that was developed in Brazil where local communities can live and with a condition of non-harmful extraction. So they can hunt and they can fish for their own purposes, for their needs to provide food for themselves and their families. They, for example, cannot cut trees and cannot basically do a severe extraction of the areas that they populate. And we started to work with other communities also in Extractive Reserves in the state of Pará, which again, you could characterize that some of them are indigenous and some of them are local or traditional communities. They face the same problem of lack of any sort of infrastructure in these reserves or any forms of connectivity apart from HF radios that in some communities have been in use for decades. So in a way, this technology that our connectivity networks are based on, they are not really new for this context or for these communities. And it serves as an advantage in terms of appropriation because there is no fear of using the systems because people are already very familiar with using the HF radios. So, and another aspect that is very important to note in terms of these connectivity solutions is that the majority of population of the forest and rural communities have smartphones. And although there is no reception of the network or there is no connectivity in the forest, they use these devices to, again, when they go to urban areas or when they stay in the forest, it's a storage device. And they exchange files or photos or videos or different sorts of information over Bluetooth. So, when we were developing the systems, this was already considered as part of the solution. And now I will just give a bit more detail. The project that the second, I think we can separate our efforts of what we're trying to achieve here in Brazil of developing this high frequency radio systems into three steps. Our first step was in the state of Acre. Then we started expanding and working with other communities in the state of Altamira. In the meantime, developing the digital interface to connect the radio part with the interface that people could use, the easy to use interface user friendly interface through which they could upload the digital data and then send it over the radio. So this system consists of two parts. First, it's the analog radios that people can use anytime to talk. And the second part, which is more recent that we are still developing is the digital interface using which people can already upload files to the system and send them. And then they can also download files to their computers or to their smartphones. So, if we're talking about this initiative or this effort from an activist perspective, as I already said, this effort started in 2013. There are various trips to the Amazon Forest installations of the radios, trainings and workshops, discussions with the communities, how they want to implement this project, in which communities, in which houses of the communities. And the first main phase is the Phonious Draw Project that took place in Acre. I don't know if this presentation will be available later. It provided some references to the reports that were published with more information. If somebody is interested to read about it later because there is no time to cover all this in this presentation. So, here is just some pictures of the main project and who are, until today, participating and providing assistance to the communities. And you can see on the right-hand side is, again, a house with the station, with the radio station installed for the everyday use. And then the second project, which was the continuation, is the pilot project of the Hermes prototype system. Hermes is an abbreviation for a high-frequency emergency and rural multimedia exchange system. So, basically, this is the digital interface, to put it in simple words. It was developed and tested in 2018 in Oaxaca, together with Hisomachica. And what we did, we participated in the Mozilla Wireless Innovation Challenge for Network Society. And thanks to that grant, we managed to develop and test the system. So, later, after the tests were completed successfully and we managed to assemble and test the whole setup, this upgraded system that was further developed was already installed in the Altamira Community Networks. And this is what I call the third project. But actually, if you look at it, they're all interlinked and interwined and there is no, like, really, you can already separate them in terms of time sequence. It's all kind of mixed, but just to give some clearance of how it all developed. So, and the project is called Connecting Amazon Forests, Indigenous and Local Communities for High Frequency Radio Technology. It took place, but it's still taking place in Tejago-Mate territory that combines free extractive reserves with 80 communities scattered on a huge territory. And some communities are apart. It takes from two to four days by boat to arrive from one community to another. And here on the picture, you can actually see that there is the interface box. It's a touchscreen interface with, compiled with Raspberry Pi and other technical parts that I will not be able to explain right now. Okay, again, I provided a link to a more detailed visual report that you can also access on our website. And to talk about the autonomy of these systems, the idea was always to provide a local, an autonomous solution that fits the local needs of the communities. So from the very beginning, it was based on the request of the local communities. And we wanted to create a system that is not dependent on any kind of provider or any telecommunication service provider, be it state or private. And the Hermes system is also secure. It has GPG encryption. But this only goes to the digital part. When people are using the analog part of the system and talking, still the rest of the network can hear what they're talking about. But if they want to exchange files, digital files, for example, they can make a simultaneous recording like a voice message and transmit it to another community, this message will be encrypted. And again, to reflect a little bit on the, on whatever was already talking about connecting to the next billion rhetoric, that again, we are, we are seeing this project within the framework of community network that can be defined as done for their people and by the people of this community, it's always been a collaborative effort. And we are trying to, our role here is to help implement the wishes and needs of the local communities. Again, also to provide training and to teach how they can operate and use this equipment, but not really to impose it. And so to stick to the bottom up approach of this system. We're also working a lot on the sustainability and reliability of this network. So far, there are some technical issues. Again, as I said, the HF technology for this is the first HF connectivity system for the civilian use. So there is really little development and we can say that these projects are the pioneers in this area. So of course, there is no like all the shelf solutions that we can just buy. So we need to develop some software and hardware parts that are still not working that good, but the system functions. And if we relate to what we're trying to oppose with this effort, again, is the solutions or initiatives, top-down initiatives like Internet.org by Facebook or FreeBasics by other similar initiatives. And a little bit about the use of Spectrum. Within the context of the Amazon forest, shortwave band is very good and useful in the forest because the way HF radio work is that the wave goes and it bounces with the ionosphere and so it goes like this. And there is no problem with the forest. So for example, with the GSM networks, the signal just doesn't pass through the forest because there are trees. So that's not really a solution for this environment. When we talk about shortwave band, there is no problem with this. So the wave goes up and then it bounces and comes back. So the reception is much better. As I already mentioned, the problem with the civilian use today mostly military projects use it, use the HF or high frequency bands. And there is almost no commercial interest in the use of HF. So there is very little development. In terms of social and political implications of HF band, it provides connectivity, fast connectivity that nowadays is becoming really vital for the very isolated or underserved rural communities of the Amazon region. Because when it comes to illegal activities or the fires that are becoming a new norm within this context, people need a fast and reliable means of communication to ask for help or to report or to coordinate their actions. And in this case, HF band use is very useful and reliable. The problems that arise or that are persistences beginning of the development of these projects is that here in Brazil, the legislation or the regulation of the spectrum hasn't been really updated since the 1970s, specifically for licenses for communal use of networks. And what we're facing now and apart from the technical development issues or struggles is that a policy, a need of update of policy and the regulation. So today in Brazil, for example, it is possible to obtain a license to operate a radio system. However, it is extremely bureaucratic. It is also quite costly if we look at it from the perspective of the forest communities for them. It's very expensive. They need to hire an engineer who has to prepare a special project to analyze this network to analyze the frequency and then to kind of issue a conclusion that they can receive the license. So therefore, it's really not easy for the indigenous or traditional communities to receive licenses to operate these kind of networks. And so what we can conclude is basically that there is no affordable or an easy to get way to obtain licenses. And in this context, what is still to be done in terms of policy is that we still need to advocate for a regulatory framework on community connectivity. And we need to make to bring this notion of licenses to operate the network. For example, an HF network and a license to radio spectrum usage into the into the field of policy making and legislation in Brazil. And just to conclude, I wanted to say that what we did or what we are trying what we are attempting to do with these projects is to allow development and evolution of digital services that are running on top of the already existing high frequency radio technology that has been already in use for decades in the Amazon forest. So this solution it complements local technologies and networks instead of turning them obsolete. And it is collaboratively collaboratively designed with the active participation of the communities themselves with their participation in the development and the innovation of these applications that run on top of the digital infrastructure. Thank you very much for your attention. And once again, thank you very much for the opportunity to participate and present our project, our association and what we're trying to do here in Brazil. And in case you want to get in touch or to get more information about what we're doing, I put my content details here on the slide. Thank you very much. So let's see if you can hear me better now. Yes. Great. So thank you. Thank you very much for this very interesting and profound talk. Interestingly, we got only one question so far in our feedback pad, which is what is your approach to grow the community and share your knowledge. Okay. So what is our approach to growth and sharing? Could you please repeat the question? What is your approach to grow the community so to get more people involved I guess and share your knowledge so that they can participate more effectively. Okay. Well, one observation that I took from this project is that it is very important to be well connected within the local environment and with the communities. So for example, when we arrived to the forest and stayed, usually you stay in one of the houses of the community, it takes time for people to get used to you. It takes time for people to start really talking to start sharing. And it's a process, first of all, and what we are doing, we are organizing workshops with every community. We're organizing a workshop and a training for every member of the community that he or she can try using the radios, sending the files. And by this trying to engage every member and leaving this notion of continued conversation or interaction. And for this reason specifically, we always put one station, one radio station in the urban area. So in case there are some problems, we have always a channel to provide assistance. Another part of the project is that there are local representatives of the local communities who volunteered to serve as researchers and also technical assistants who are always there to provide help. So for example, if something breaks or something stopped working well, they usually go to the community to provide assistance. Apart from that, we are now working on developing a project to create a more inclusive and more open, also the gender inclusive network of users trying to engage more indigenous and traditional community representatives here in Brasilia, in the capital, where a lot of advocacy work is happening and a lot of political engagement is taking place to provide empowerment or capacity building, so that later these indigenous and traditional community leaders or representatives can already take these solutions to their communities. I think these are the main points and in terms of knowledge sharing and learning, there are various initiatives that are being developed within the Altamira project in the state of Pará, engaging into also, there is a program that some young people within the communities, they are participating in the higher education programs. So they stay most of the time in their communities, but then they have to communicate with their professors. And they are using the network to exchange, to send their assignments, to receive their tasks, their materials over the network. I think this is one of the probably best examples in terms and as I said, the project is still evolving and we will have a workshop later this year again to meet with the community representatives to understand better how we can accommodate their needs for, again, education and other services that they want to receive over the network. Thank you. Okay, that was a quite extensive answer. Unfortunately, we are quite a bit late on time and questions are just coming in now. So a remark in the pad is a link to an additional video that has not been shown. And if you want to, you can click there and watch it later. And I think it's going to be a bit close now to take all these questions that are just coming up now. I'm really sorry. This is a little bit unfortunate from the timing. But maybe people can find you via social network or contact you directly to get their questions answered. Would that work? Yes. Totally, we'll be happy to answer any questions. So as a hint, we have also a possibility to do self-organized sessions. So maybe if you want to do a spontaneous voice meeting, voice video call later today or tomorrow, you feel free to set one up. And until then, I would say thank you for the talk. Very interesting and have a nice evening. Thank you very much. Have a nice evening too. Thank you. Bye-bye. Sending community cell phone. Sending means putting seeds on the ground so that new plants are developed from these. Everything starts with the dream of sending food that the family and the community need. The community cell phone represents a collective dream to send a free and accessible communication system. This service allows the exercise of the right to individual communication and collective and contributes to the autonomy and free determination of the indigenous peoples. The hand turned. We sow with the help of the community. The community acquires, installs, operates and administers its own cell phone network with the help of the team of TICAC. We start by informing the authorities or people interested in knowing everything related to the community cell phone. Then in assembly, the community decides if it wants to join as a TICAC social and install the community cell phone service. Selecting the field. From the correct selection of our field, we will have a good seed and a better harvest. From the community cell phone service, the community with the support of the TICAC team selects the best place where the teams will be installed to achieve the best harvest and best coverage. The technological area makes a viability study to know if the community has the necessary conditions to operate a network. Preparing the field. We want to achieve that communication grows in the best place and with the right conditions and for this it is important to sow and get so that our field has a rich substance that can feed the roots so that they germinate in good conditions. In the cell phone, the sows consist of the capacity and commitment of the community and of those who operate and manage the community network. The ritual. Under the auspicious vision of the indigenous peoples, we ask permission from Mother Earth to sow. In the cell phone, we do the same. We deliver suffering to Mother Earth so that it allows us to install the teams and we ask for the good use of this. The seed. We sow in family, with community work, with the hope of always getting a good harvest. Mother Earth is sung and we ask for the universe or some divinity. It helps us that this effort is reflected in good fruits. This is how the installation of the community cell phone is carried out. Among the TIC staff, there are people in the community until this is in optimal operation. The community, with the help of a provider, puts a tower that will support the teams of the cell phone. The program does all the technical support and maintenance so that it works over time. After the organization formally delivers to the community its operating certificate that credits it to be able to legally operate its own network of cell phones. We culminate with the party, which reminds us that we have to celebrate that we have our own cell phone and that we are installing a heritage for the new generations. Care for the seed. Every seed must be cared for and protected. It is required to remove the soil and fight certain pests. This is how the community cell phone should be handled and operated properly and together. We do this through legal, technological, organizational, administrative, and communication that TIC does, and the commitment and attention of the community. The harvest. When the previous steps have been developed, with commitment and togetherness, there will surely be a very good harvest. The harvest in the cell phone consists of becoming sustainable so that it is counted with access to communication and there are economic changes and the community decides in what services of community benefit to use them. We suggest continuing to sow other radio bases to expand coverage and achieve little by little so that other localities have this service. We have to sow well, if we want to harvest well and understand that it is a process that requires time, care, and collective work to yield fruits.