User:Lib2know/Guifi.net in the Press
From Guifi - Media-pool Common Repository
The Guardian: Ten digital social innovators to watch
Many innovations tackling societal problems have developed online. By: Jon Kingsbury and Peter Baeck highlight rising stars
Researching the question What is digital social innovation? the authors find a top ten list which shows Guifi.net in prominent company like:
- Smart Citizen Kit
- Arduino
- Zooniverse
- Safecast
- Priorities
- Fairphone
- Goteo
- Ushahidi
- OpenCorporates
About Guifi.net they say:
9. Ramon Roca, founder, Guifi.net @guifinet –
- Guifi.net was founded in 2000 as a response to the lack of broadband internet in rural Catalonia, where commercial internet providers weren't providing a connection. The idea, developed by Ramon Roca and his co-founders, was a "mesh network" where each person in the network used a small radio transmitter that functions like a wireless router to become a node in the Guifi net. Only one node needs to be connected to the internet and from it the connection is shared wirelessly with all others in its vicinity, who again share the connection wirelessly with those closest to them. With its more than 23,000 nodes, Guifi has been described as the largest mesh network in the world. The majority of Guifi activity is in Spain, but the network reaches as far as Argentina, China, India and the US.
Though Guifi.net contains lots of mesh networks it is none itself.
