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Kalentzi is a small mountain village of approximately 350 inhabitants, located in the south of Ioannina Prefecture, 30km from the city of Ioannina. Located in the borderline of the Tzoumerka National Park, it is a place of wild natural beauty and authentic Greek countryside. The village belongs to the North Tzoumerka municipality. The main economic activities of the population are farming, animal breeding and partly tourism. Excluding the touristic activities, it is otherwise a village very similar to Sarantaporo.

One year ago, in mid 2017, the Sarantaporo.gr Community Network (CN) team collaborated with P2P Lab of Ioannina to initiate a local CN for the village of Kalentzi. P2P Lab already operates in this area with its Tzoumakers community, a collaborative workshop to fabricate farming machinery, under their EU funded "Phygital" project. In this context a member of P2P Lab and a municipal councilor of the North Tzoumerka municipality visited Sarantaporo in July 2017 to participate in a two-day workshop on Community Wireless Networks. The ground was set and all that was missing was the seed funding which would support the project. This came a few months later, in early 2018, from FundAction via the Rethink grant.

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On Monday, July 9th 2018 at 18:30 - 21:00 at Impact Hub, Karaiskaki 28, 105 54, Athens, following the planned two-day visit to the wireless community network Sarantaporo.gr, a public event is organized by the netCommons project, funded by the European program Horizon2020. It brings international experts and local stakeholders to the same table to build a better understanding of the critical role and needs of small internet providers and community networks and explore how the new EU telecommunications code may affect them, as well as what preventive measures can be taken today.

The public will have the opportunity to become aware of the community networks models and the global movement of support, as well as the current legal and regulatory framework in Greece as an EU member affecting them. The event will take the form of short presentations by selected guests, both domestic and international.

An open discussion will follow to explore how community networks such as Sarantaporo.gr can be supported and replicated in other areas.

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On July 7-9, researchers, business representatives and prominent personalities in the development of Community Networks worldwide will visit one of the successful ventures of this movement in Greece, the Sarantaporo.gr wireless community network. The event includes a two-day guided tour in the area of Sarantaporo (Elassona Municipality) and a public event in Athens with local and international participants. The event is organized by the netCommons program and the Sarantaporo.gr NPO.

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What does a doctor who visits a village once per week and a city-dwelling child who is unwilling to visit his village-living grandparents have in common? The answer: they both need Internet connectivity.

Sarantaporo is a small village located opposite Mt Olympus, in central Greece. Until 2010, it did not have Internet connectivity. Being a remote, isolated village with low population density, Greek telcos did not consider Sarantaporo worth the investment to deploy modern telecommunications infrastructure. Likewise, the government (due to its economic situation) was unable to provide Internet connectivity, even though Greek citizens are required to use online services such as TAXISnet — the official state-run digital platform — to submit their tax returns.

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Last July we organized a two-day event in Sarantaporo which comprised ICT & Networking training for the locals and a discussion entitled: “Transferring experiences and technical know-how from Sarantaporo.gr Community Network to Northern Tzoumerka municipality, to assist in building their first community network”. A councilman from Northern Tzoumerka municipality was invited and participated in this event, along with members of P2PLab from Ioannina.

Since then we were looking to fund a three-day workshop in the region of Northern Tzoumerka, including the necessary equipment to provide Internet connectivity. During the workshop we intend to build a basic CN infrastructure in cooperation with locals and share with them the relevant knowledge. In addition, best practices for building a special interest community will be discussed. Through this we wish to empower the Tzoumerka team and help them get through the always challenging first steps, towards their long-term goal of bridging the digital divide in the area.

We are excited to announce that this project can now become a reality with the help of FundAction, which is funding us via its “Rethink” grant. In their blog you can read more about the process of the Rethink action. The very important aspect of this grant is the procedure by which it is awarded. Activists from all over Europe submit their proposals, engage in a fruitful interaction on these and finally vote to decide who will be the ones to receive the grant.

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