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EKA is a quest to radically change the way communities benefit from internet technology. EKA focuses on providing accessible, resilient, and sustainable alternatives to today’s centralized internet. Our interventions focus on the development of remote trans-himalayan communities, with the goal to support their meaningful and sustainable transformation. EKA work is supported by local community-leaders.
EKA’s initiatives focus on energy efficient peer-to-peer networking, availability of co-creation tools, and the way humans interact with them. Initiatives are structured as open-source projects, with emphasis on modularity, documentation, permissive licensing, and other means that allow wide-adoption among community developers as well as global technology innovators. EKA regularly publishes research findings to enable stakeholders to think in a fundamentally different way about internet technology and how such technology affects human life and communities.
We believe that by introducing meaningful technology interventions as an alternative for centralized internet; communities can be made more equal, stable, and sustainable. In addition to the communities we work in, we share the wider concern with the future of key internet technologies, and the way in which such technologies influence people and affect their lives.
EKA is currently active in several key trans-himalayan locations, with active community mesh networks in Ladakh, Spiti, and Himachal Pradesh, including the highest altitude solar-powered, community maintained network in the world.
Peer-to-peer networking
EKA’s Skynet mesh-networks are solar-powered, decentralized, and highly resilient alternative internet infrastucture. Skynets are community-maintained and leverage widely available, low cost, energy efficient components.
Decentralized content delivery
Running on EKA’s novel Skynet infrastucture, communities have access to free phonecalls, weather and farming sensor data, video streaming, and other key community content features, as well as tools for publishing and co-creation.
Last-mile data delivery
EKA’s research and development focus on using radio, including FM through community radio stations, as a last-mile data delivery medium.
Discovery and learning interfaces
EKA’s research focus on encouraging disovery and learning as a creative process that empowers and inspires people to use technology in a meaningful way.
Digital creation economics
EKA’s research focus on identifying means in which the communities can increase economic resilience through creation and digital economics.
To learn more, get in touch or join a fortnightly community call. Minutes from these calls are maintained in a google-doc here.
Eka Foundation 2019