 Today we will hear a personal experience report from the initiative Freifunk, a project of the Chaos-Darmstadt-EV. This is where there are a lot of obstacles to overcome. But a central question to us is what do refugees actually need, what's important to them, how do they utilise network resources, how do they use the internet. And so we are also interested in lessons learned, what have we learned through experience so that the next year can be even better. So I'd like to welcome our speaker, Peter Löwenstein, and we'd like a round of applause please. Thank you. Hello from Freifunk-Darmstadt, that's where I'm from, Chaos-Darmstadt. So we are initiative and project, and we think it's an initiative because it doesn't really have an end so far. A personal experience because I'm going to give some positions that isn't shared by everybody, and I just want to stress that point. So that's the overview over the last 12 months, so that's not necessarily means that we did Freifunk for refugees in this time frame, but this started only in the summer. For me it was different because I was also candidate for the parliament of the state parliament, and Freifunk was one of my political points, and I brought this to the media attention. So then the refugee wave arrived, and there was a question, what do we do about that? The refugee homes are not well equipped with Wi-Fi, and so what do we do about that? It's not easy to discuss or to organize because we do this in a local plenary with everybody. We made contacts to local companies and similar, and we got input from that made us continue and made us stronger. So I'm not going to talk so much about the technical details today. Maybe I can summarize them in such a way that with the Freifunk routers. We did it similar to how we did it at home, but then we did a lot of technical stuff that we didn't even think was possible before. So it's possible to do really complex systems that isn't that much work to do. The only real problem is the load that's going to go to the servers, but that wasn't really my work, so others from Freifunk Darmstadt did this really well. So it's more about pinpointing the decision makers in the administration and with discussions. So how is it possible to do more effective Freifunk for refugees and to streamline this in the future? So this is the area where we are active. The white spot in the middle is Darmstadt. And so the area around it is the district Darmstadt D-Borg and other districts, Christbergstraße and Offenburg, which is south of Hesse. So then there's Frankfurt, Bavaria, next to it like Rheinland-Talz. So it's like a relatively closed area, Darmstadt, and all the areas around it that are relatively different from how they are connected to each other or connected to the internet. So it's like 16 megabit maybe, or it's more in the companies, obviously, or universities. So in the political area it's very different between the districts. Like Darmstadt has a green majority magistrate, a green mayor, and in Darmstadt D-Borg there's an SPD Social Democrat minister with green support. And has around 130 homes. So there's, for example, one place in Bamhausen, which is like 1,500 refugees in a former barracks. So in Darmstadt itself it's like several homes from 350 to 500 inhabitants and many smaller ones. I had asked the different parties and groups of the parties in the parliaments. So it's important because it's an important point in the upcoming elections, local elections. But we try to stay independent of every political spectrum. So I can only recommend this to every Freifunk initiative. But it's not a non-political thing itself, any either. So we just need bandwidth. And in the rural areas it's very important to ask people you know, or ask local IT companies if it's possible to collaborate with them to use some part of their bandwidth. So that then you have to convince them that it makes sense for them to provide bandwidth of a Freifunk initiative. Then second important thing is that Freifunk initiative is no provider. So we're going to help you with installing the router and setting it up. Then the routers are bought and we just give like free support with problems. So it's best to ask it with problems when you're going to our local meetings. But administration and companies not necessarily agree with that. So that's like one of the homes as found in OpenStreetMap that we started connecting in November with the bandwidth provided by some people living next to it that we beamed to the home. So the red dots is one client from the refugee home that's connected to the Freifunk node. It was a small solution that we started with and it repeated at another one, another home. So we just wanted to find a solution at first. And then we have maybe we have 300, 400 with the start. And then you have, so you know, then if you have 16 kilobit for 300 foreign people, it's not very much and you don't get it very far. So we try to expand and we had some success with that. In the lower part, it's a beam from a local provider supporting us that's like to the going to the local barracks. That's 2.2 kilometers. And we set it up like that. And on the left at the green area, it's the that's the first original nodes from the local inhabitants. So soon some time ago from the town of Darmstadt asked, because it working so well, could you maybe provide bandwidth to another home as well that we set up recently? And that's like one of the at the top. We have like quite some bandwidth. That's what you see here at the left bottom left, the different homes, the wave curves, the number of refugees locked in. And at the peak times, there were 1000 981 refugees connected. So the applause doesn't belong to me really, but the Freifunk initiative altogether. So I'm more the publicity person. But the outliers here that you can you can see these that's just the daily regularities because of specific time. Obviously at night, there's not as much going on. But what can you what you can equally recognize quite well here is where we had technical difficulties ourselves. Like from October 1st until until the day before before yesterday, this was the actual amount that we can that we could could provide. So we're still on the lookout for for supportive partners for associations and collaborators. Some of those who who would like to join in with us on a on a political level, but even just on a let neighborly cooperative local very local level. So these this can be the mayors or the social charities and of course politicians. And so the the work you're doing, the the press work, it's a matter of publicity. And I can just tell you that as soon as you have the mayor on your side, the the communal services will support you. The even the fire firemen will support you. And it's a lot easier to reach common kind of goals. And that just by the experience that you know that support comes top down in administration, you can utilize that. So we also try to contact and inform the the local council. And trying to improve things for individual homes. And so in October we basically just started creating reality of three sports training training halls that were made turned into homes. And well, there was an information problem this this had to be returned to the local council office to local administration. And there's a lot of information processing that no one knew. Well, in this in this from these hundred and thirty the places they were not provided or they were well, they were supposed to be hundred and thirty individual connections provided. But it turned out that we couldn't provide that. But we don't really see the problem because if the if the infrastructure is there, if the landline is there, for instance, there shouldn't be the difficulty to prevent us from from giving donation, giving the routers as a donation and just setting them up there. So this is quite difficult and quite frustrating sometimes. So in some cases we had even in Darmstadt there was almost riots broke out between young people in in the home because just the living conditions were so appalling. Just the level of frustration of things that have to be addressed and have to have to be changed. It's quite hard to find a way to reach your goals. But we might be angry, but we can't enforce things just by by pressure. So we're trying to talk about what what we can what we can attain. And what people are basically different organizations, private charities are selected by by the by the city or by the administration to to provide and to maintain these these homes. That's from clothes and from food. And why not include Internet in these just provisions in just the things that have to be included if you organize and set up one of these homes. And I think the Internet is important also because just also giving an access to the culture where where these people find themselves in because if you want to find out something about the society that you're currently being dropped into, the Internet is a very easy access and something that cannot be provided in the same way from administration procedures which take a lot longer. And of course it's a matter of accessibility and communication just being able to speak to someone at home from your home country just keeping in touch. And well, regarding other roles in support in the support community, the fire forces were quite important and especially the coordinators and we eventually did manage to get all these stakeholders somehow on the same page. And will enable this this collaboration to be functional. For instance, just how to get this organized a set up a home for 500 refugees, just the sheer logistics of this setup and also do it in well in advance and not, you know, start when they're already all these people in front of your door basically. So back to the question what what someone individual what every single one of you might be able to to manage and support in this. I think it's a lot more than you think everything any any one of you if you just have a little bit of time if you have a little bit of energy or interest in this in this matter. If you're if you're in touch with with the church charity or with with any of these work circles refugee support groups just go and approach these organizations. It's really important it's and you're sure to find someone and be able to support in various ways. Well, what you can see here is like an already made refugee internet cafe set up basically by one of the Freifunk community members and this Freifunk person was collaborating with with a with a home administration and make or being at least serious and professional enough to to to get along with them or to to make progress. And so they managed to get these three seats these three internet cafe seats approved and now they're so successful with this that they want to extend it to 10 more to 10 more computer places. And so it's rather clear that the the use that this this empowerment and this well these opportunities to to connect and to educate yourself that these are very essential to any integration processes. So talk to your network if they don't have possibility to talk to journalists. If you manage that well then then the media is very eager to actually work with that as well. Like few days after the after our first meeting we had got this this article about our work that we connected the first bearer from a barracks. So then we were contacted by the mayor and other groups. So and yeah OK Darmstadt Freifunk is actually doing something great. That's what they told us so five counties and from Darmstadt we had a lot of a lot of support and requests. So one of one of the groups we actually had to give away because to another Freifunk group because it was not possible for us to support it anymore. Like the servers would have to be extended and it's not easy to do that on a voluntary basis. So we also had resolutions in the council local councils. So yeah they thought OK it's a great idea. Freifunk is great and we want to want to do it want to write it for refugees. My personal opinion is that you can't really rely on that. So it's maybe great for them if it's if it's in the gets in the media or or in the in the party program. But they always have the possibility to change their mind later on. And it doesn't really matter if it's the grains or the social democrats or whoever and most of the time they will even be proud of changing their mind. So with the greens like on the district county level or higher you can work very well. But below that it depends on the personal on the persons involved. And with the Christian Democrats I'm really surprised. I had some some hesitations. But it's like really they really said told me it's a good possibility for them to integrate to integrate refugees better. The pirate party is only in the big cities still active in a little bit so that they that they might help help us. And with the social democrats. Yeah what I said it doesn't really matter. Like depending on whether it was set in the federal or or other levels and then they just change their minds later on. The left the very left and the DKP are very difficult. Do you want to know more about it? Okay that's going away from your from your question time. We have a coalition between DKP and leftists and the basis of Darmstadt Deburg. So we have to ask the questions. If if you're not in the situation that the refugees are set better off than people getting hearts for. So the DKP didn't think that was really funny that's that funny so they the part of the person should be removed from the list. And so the coalition broke apart because of this this person's opinion. But even then I didn't want to I wouldn't join with DKP to try out setting up setting up fry for him. But I don't really think DKP is is like on the position to to go into that. But that's just my personal opinion. So in her service providers and other competitors. So they're not it's not possible for them to to let the people into their net without logging without registration. So all that stuff that we don't do with Fryfunk. And the sales team is also not really set up for that to as a commercial company. And then yeah Fryfunk or like Wi-Fi hotspot OK we don't really know what that is. Then we have first have to ask the server the the persons the the handy workers they can do the cables in the homes. And so it's quite difficult to work with them. So with us the the fire safe the fire brigade just put up the. Letters and then it was possible to get the cables in the right positions for the Rogers and that was that. So what's the alternatives. That would be to get the local refugees to help themselves to do their own fry from communities. So that they can connect with that and provide with that. And so for example in one case he had it was like one person who was like very good with that. And in a rabbit set up VPN connections. And yeah provided VPN access for for other inhabitants and to conflict regions. Some really good people and every community shouldn't let them just stay bored in the in the homes but should like try to engage them. Because of their print a lot of they have a lot of potential. So with a look to what the future with a few seconds that I've left. So Freifunk Darmstadt got a lot of support from the mayor. So we didn't have to use a lot of donations to set up Wi-Fi at the homes. But maybe we are like maybe we get we get dependent on on the state support and that's can also be difficult. And then still Freifunk. And yet it's a problem and maybe if the state of Hesse should try a pilot project like how could we set up a solutions that are can be used all over the country. And that scale well and that don't have to be started in every community again. So it's much easier. You don't have to talk that much. There's just you got a bundle of solutions, schooling material and similar. And I wish that we see a lot more of that in the federal also on the federal level in 2014. So I wish to get a camp to to exchange experiences, how to set up communities and not only to set up the first staff but then how to enable people and the power people to help themselves. So I'm at the end. We need an internet solution because it's a humanitarian, humanitarian thing. So we need Freifunk to provide internet solutions for the refugees and let them help themselves. And we can it's easy. It helps to integrate the very, very experienced people with a lot of potential in our societies. And let's not get them bored. Thanks. Well, sadly, there's no more time left for questions. But if you have any questions, Peter will be outside in front of the hall. And you can you can ask him and discuss in in person. And I would like to say thanks in particular because this was a difficult situation today. He left his laptop fell apart just before the talk and this was a borrowed one. And also, of course, I'd like to thank everyone as as who's participating who's working on Freifunk initiative for refugees for newcomers, as they say. I'd like a really big applause for them as well. Thanks a lot.