With this year's Community Networks Exchange (CNX) only two months away, today's TypeRight takes a look at what we are focusing on in the ninth edition, taking place in November.

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, access to information, technology, and data has become a critical enabler for societal progress. However, millions of people, especially in marginalised and underserved areas, continue to face barriers that prevent them from fully participating in the digital world. For these communities, digital access is often limited by issues such as poor infrastructure, low digital literacy, and inadequate resources. As a result, they miss out on opportunities for education, healthcare, economic development, and civic participation. The Community Network Xchange (CNX) enters its 9th year, focusing on the theme ‘Meaningful Access, Data & Hyperlocal Communities‘ to promote a more inclusive approach to digital access and address ongoing challenges. It calls for solutions that are not only about connecting people to the internet but also ensuring that communities have the tools, knowledge, and resources to use technology meaningfully. Through CNX, we aim to empower communities to harness the power of data and digital tools to drive their own development and solve locally relevant challenges. By focusing on hyperlocal solutions, we can implement interventions that are responsive to the specific needs and contexts of each community.

(From the CNXAPAC Website)

We have had eight editions of the Community Network Exchange - each year people and organisations from various parts of the world got together and exchanged ideas on how they had experimented on the ground with making the internet more accessible in their own communities. From innovative ways to use community networks in places high off in the mountains and floating away in rivers, local ideas helped enable people access each other.

This year, our focus points among a list of many that you can find on the website, are Meaningful Access and Hyperlocal Communities.

By hyperlocal, we mean not just ideas that connected people in specific local situations as our previous CNXs had highlighted - some of them are below:

We want to extend the idea to hyperlocal data, knowledge, and power - and ask whether the aggregated national data can actually work on addressing specific community needs. Just as we get networks functional on a community level, with nuanced understanding of how the terrain and social geography, community-centered data that is available for nuanced understandings of local challenges will help shift power from external policymakers to the community, enabling them to use their own data to inform decision-making, advocate for their rights, and create solutions that are truly relevant to their specific context. This favours bottom-up thinking over the other way round.

The idea of community-owned digital infrastructure is part of a broader discussion on digital sovereignty. The fundamental philosophy remains the same - like when commercial networks that may neglect less profitable rural or low-income areas, community networks were imagined to address the specific needs of their members. Another key here is the ownership of said date - are these local data to be owned by governments and then possibly sold at thwir will to larger companies without a proper law that ensures some security? This is in the context of how several local and indegenous groups fear colonisation by big data, as this example from the new zeland Maori community shows:

How New Zealand’s Māori people are fighting for their data sovereignty

The Māori data sovereignty movement is part of a global campaign for indigenous data protection.

techmonitor.ai

Meaningful access to the digital world goes beyond simply providing an internet connection. It's about ensuring that people have the necessary tools, knowledge, and resources to use technology effectively for their own development. If a community can't find information or services in their native tongue, the access is not truly meaningful - the same goes for technology and platforms being accessible to persons with disabilities and other marginalized groups. Locally, this goes in sync with the hyperlocal as meaningful means different in different geographies and communities.

If you have ideas on how to enhance connectivity locally and inclusively, you should join us at the CNXAPAC 2025, in hyderabad.

Register here to join us at the program and this link to submit a session!

Reminder that the call for sessions end on August 30th.

In Other News

Continued from our previous chapter, on exclusion through claims of inclusion:

As Mizoram collects biometric data of Myanmar refugees, experts flag risks

The data could be used to target critics of the junta sheltering in India, they said.

scroll.in

on dangerous infrastructure:

Hyderabad electrocution deaths: Where wires hang low, and accountability even lower

Grief and tragedy strike Old Ramanthapur as a fatal electrocution incident leaves families shattered in Hyderabad suburbs.

thehindu.com

and how readable data can be helpful for democracy: