Disconnected: When Your Connection Goes Dark

[mozfest-bot]

[ UUID ] fac8630c-a255-42f4-83da-eb67bbbe81cf

[ Submitter's Name ] Mehan Jayasuriya [ Submitter's Affiliated Organisation ] Mozilla [ Submitter's Github ] @mehan

[ Additional facilitators ] Jenn Beard

What will happen in your session?

We plan to crowdsource people’s reactions and needs in the face of being disconnected or under-connected to the Internet. We want to explore whether there are common needs and desires across cultures, countries and demographics to help inform the projects that people are working on for the Wireless Innovation for a Networked Society (WINS) Challenges.

We will collect user data in a creative and fun way to help the WINS Challenges teams truly respond to human needs. Using disaster scenario playing cards, we will be asking people to contribute: The people they’d want to contact The apps they’d want to access The resources they’d need most

Potential scenarios include: Earthquake Hurricane Major power outage Urban community with slow speeds Remote community with no Internet access

What is the goal or outcome of your session?

Imagine your life without the Internet. What connections to people would you lose? To the things you love? To vital information about your community?

The Wireless Innovation for a Networked Society (WINS) Challenges, run by Mozilla and sponsored by the National Science Foundation, seek practical, innovative wireless solutions that will help connect people to the Internet in challenging circumstances: after a disaster or in areas without sufficient connectivity.

Join the project by sharing your immediate reactions and needs in the face of the unknown.

If your session requires additional materials or electronic equipment, please outline your needs.

If we could get a monitor and laptop (with power and wifi), that would be great.

Time needed

All weekend, as an installation, exhibit or drop-in session

[LindseyInCHA]

Any updates about which space this drop-in offering will occur in? We're moving forward with printing and production of materials, as NSF has approved concept and is eager to see it happen. Want to make sure it's appropriately tailored to the correct track (decentralization or open innovation). Thanks!

[KirstieJane]

Hi @vigneshwerd - we don't have space in Open Innovation to accept this session. Passing it over to you in Decentralization - sorry for being so late in this process :disappointed:

[dvigneshwer]

@KirstieJane Thanks for looping me in :) @mehan amazing session, currently we have no space available in decentralization. I will get back to you if anything opens up.

[Saallen]

looping myself in and @edrushka

[jenntbeard]

I am also looping myself in as co-presenter.

[cubicgarden]

Just debating on behalf of Decentralisation, hope to have a answer one way or another by end of the day

[KirstieJane]

Thank you @cubicgarden! @mehan and @jenntbeard, given that you're going to be wrangling the Open Innovation space, I'm thinking that we should accept this session! I'm adding the Open Innovation milestone back on! ✨

(Let me know if you'd rather not facilitate as well as wrangle, but I get the feeling you can kick ass at both!)

[mehan]

Hi @KirstieJane and @auremoser, many thanks for reconsidering and accepting this session! Apologies for the delayed response on this (wanted to consult with Lindsey before making a firm decision) but Jenn and I have decided that if it's alright with both of you, we'd rather not host this session after all. The way we originally envisioned the session would require a good deal of engagement and explanation with attendees and we worry that this might take away from our ability to be fully present for all matters regarding the design of the space. We also realized that hosting a Lunch and Learn instead of a session would allow us to better achieve our direct goals for the competition (e.g. directly encouraging qualified applicants to apply to the Challenges) while requiring much less of our time during the Festival.

Let us know if you have any questions/concerns and thanks again!

CC @jenntbeard

[auremoser]

Totally makes sense @mehan thanks to you and @jenntbeard for stepping up on the Open Innovation team and for your thoughtful withdrawl here. Our label's been removed, thanks again!

[marcwalsh]

Thanks all - removing from guidebook and closing