I participated in the Global Gathering 2025 at Estoril, Portugal, accompanied by some representatives from the APC. It is a kind of digital craft fair, a dynamic meeting of digital rights defenders from more than 144 countries and over 1,000 organisations. The venue was a sort of small hamlet made up of dozens of huts, each one creating the feel of a little village around every booth. It was a great pleasure to wander around and enjoy everyone's hospitality. Anyone you meet has a purpose and a story. And that is how I also see the world.
One of my objectives in attending this this event was to share stories from our monthly series, “Building a Free Internet of the Future”, and to build bridges between participants and the Next Generation Internet Zero (NGI0) grant funding programme. NGI0 grants fund backs Free Libre Open-Source technologies (FLOSS) – for individuals, non-profit or for-profit organisations, research groups, and collectives. Apart from financial support, it also provides practical support in a myriad of ways, including mentoring, testing, security tests, accessibility, dissemination and more.
It is all about people working on FLOSS, open hardware, open protocol and open data standards. It is about means of production. My idea was to engage in dialogue with the Global Gathering community– many thanks to everyone for that. In this blog, I would like to continue the dialogue by sharing some reflections, doubts and inputs that emerged during the Global Gathering.
Booth, village, and coffee time: Taking care of our social connections
During three days I had been holding an NGI0 Infopoint at APC's booth, several people from various spheres came to ask questions about this initiative, run by a European consortium composed of 16 non-profit organisations, and led by the NlNet Foundation. The infopoint was, above all, an opportunity to facilitate encounters, including between interested individuals and organisations, to take the first steps toward mutual understanding and ways of building trust.
When you promote funding opportunities through calls for proposals, you often attract attention and curiosity. But with small grants financing technical releases, disappointment also ensues sometimes. For more than five years, many individuals and organisations have applied to NGI0, not only from the EU, but also from Iran, India, Argentina, Madagascar and many other countries.
It was important for me to explain what was possible and what the rules were for applications, and the specific differences in terms of this European programme for different regions of the world.
The vitality of free software, open data, open hardware and open protocols can only exist with the diversity of the people and organisations that contribute to them, particularly with their cultural, social and geographical heterogeneity.
In front of the booth where my infopoint happened, a small APC “village” was the hub for workshops and also for more in-depth discussions, often with critical angles, on free software, open data and other topics that are in the heart of the NGI0 APC’s inclusion principle. It was enriching to learn more about the ways in which different communities in this ecosystem operate – inclusion, diversity, equity, or their lack thereof. I have often relied on the Diversity and Inclusion Guide by Maja Kraljic (APC) and also on some interviews like "Building A Free Internet of the Future" to inform people who came to inquire about NGI0.
One anecdote will remain in my heart: I showed an online demo of how to assemble BrailleRAP, an open source printer that produces documents in Braille, and explained how to get started assembling it. The request was for a self-managed community space. They were interested because the place they run is involved in prototyping devices for communication and community networks, and people with visual impairments participate in workshops. Therefore, they needed to be able to produce and provide Braille-embossed documents for their own projects (here is a world map showing the locations of BrailleRap fabrication projects).
Some doubts that came up in conversations
The Global Gathering is also an event where you can meet people for the first time or reconnect with those you have not seen in a long time. It was rewarding to stroll around the site and take the time to chat while walking, sharing a cup of tea or coffee.
This allowed me to talk to NGI0 beneficiaries and get their feedback, hear about their current needs and next steps, even beyond NGI0.
A little-known opportunity, probably because it is not clearly explained on the NGI0 pages, is that you can apply to NGI0 multiple times and receive multiple grants, while also benefiting from support services (licences, mentoring, security audits, accessibility). With more than 1,400 projects funded, it is like the beginning of a swarm that could form a buzzing hive.
One message that was clear across conversations is that the annual NGI0 meeting in Brussels is not enough for many grantees and potential applicants to foster a sense of community. To build communities, we need to increase opportunities for people to meet and develop community-centred connectivity capabilities so that we can organise ourselves on a collective basisOnce this is done, a community can then assert its rights, as it is organised around a specific purpose with its own outputs. NGI0 recipients are funded by grants and supported by other publicly funded organisations to carry out design and engineering work.
No wonder then that the end of the NGI0 programme in its current form and funding by the European Union is a hot topic of discussion for most of the people I met. And I did not, and still do not, have any answers to provide.
Apart from the grantees, the Global Gathering was also an opportunity to meet some of those who had unsuccessfully applied to NGI0: they had also come to discuss and share their comments and questions. We talked about the frustration that can emerge when an applicant receives an automated response without feedback or specific explanations. It is difficult to manage the large number of applications within the NGI0 consortium and this poses a challenge. Incidentally, unsuccessful applicants made it clear that the responses they receive are not in line with the values promoted by NGI0.
“The code we create and the tools we use can help or harm humanity. We embed our political values in our code,” Esther Payne told me during an interview for the “Building a Free Internet of the Future” series – a message that echoed throughout these conversations. Sharing is caring. I put a bit of myself into what I shared. And I will continue to ensure that things that cause problems are done differently. I will continue to try to work with others to create the conditions for the creation and implementation of technology that can belong to everyone. And I am not doing it alone. We are doing it together.
Perhaps the most powerful infrastructure is the one we build between us through trust, empathy and the shared belief that technology can belong to everyone.
− Rebecca Ryakitimbo, A mesh of connections, care and community tech: Reflections from the Global Gathering 2025
Sharing some resources to learn more:
- Chrystalleni Loizidou on meaningful participation in a free/libre technology funding programme
- “Beyond the numbers on women’s representation: Recognition of women’s leadership in global governance” by Hortense Jongen
- A call to action: Unlocking investment for community connectivity
- RADIOLIBRE: Free communication infrastructures from Colombia
- Gender Tech and Security Wiki
- Building A Free Internet of the Future
Xavier Coadic is a consultant for the NGI0 consortium, and a free/libre open source software activist with 15 years of experience in free open source cultures and communities (software, data hardware, wetware, policy makers and political groups, research and development).