@mike_hales, you can read the original manifesto on Data Commons Cooperative's website. For now, you can discuss any related items on this thread. We'll be expanding options soon.

@Graham, that's a great idea, and although I've thought about contacts with regional bodies, I have not yet published about it. Right now, we are working on the best way to manage this. Our dual objectives are to

1) open input of future versions, immediate tasks and longer term plans to the signatories and other supporters and

2) utilize Patio's, an international network of tech cooperatives, awareness within ICA to drive implementation.

In the past, Data Commons Cooperative has driven the authorship and the project to deliver the manifesto to ICA. Data Commons will still be involved, but taking more of a back seat as we work to get ICA's cooperation.

Please give me some time, at most a month, to put this all together; many wheels are in motion at the moment. Here are some ideas as we move ahead.

1. We'll continue using this Loomio instance to have discussions, probaby splitting it into the three threads we've identified

   1. Version 2.0 of the manifesto

   2. Work with ICA directly

   3. Work with federations and local cooperatives bodies

2. We will create a group email via Electric Embers cooperative to update those who consented to be contacted about future initiatives regarding the manifesto.

3. Based on feedback from the channels in #1 and #2, above, Patio will manage the conversation with ICA. We would invite cooperatives in each country to work through their country's apex organization, federations and consortium to work on the local implementations.

4. We will work broadly within the cooperative ecosystem to educate cooperatives about the principles of the manifesto, engage them in it's implementation, and work together to envision a cooperative future To the extent that meet.coop has resources for us to use, we'd be very pleased to work with you.

Happy Year of Cooperatives 2025!

I haven't been following this long thread. Can someone please point to a copy of the document as it's currently being considered at ICA? And any other associated documents that describe the context, the game plan or future steps?

Thanks, sorry to be slack on this. I'm coming from the background of meet.coop v1.0 2020-23. Shared with @Graham below, who is meet.coop v2.0 ongoing.

Hi @Steve Ediger (ChiCommons) - in your post from 8 dec you point out at least two paths for furthering this work. Given that the initiative has been given notional political consent from Ariel Guarco I'd suggest a third strand of activity, which would be about reaching out to regional, national and sectoral cooperative organisations under the ICA umbrella to:

a) highlight the fact that this recognition and support has been gained and that work is underway to develop this into a practical programme;

b) encourage these organisations to consider how best they might incorporate this manifesto and the thinking behind it ito help drive their own development and that of their members; and

c) encourage them to show their support for the manifesto by subscribing to it if they've not yet done so.

Oh, and congratulations, by the way, to all those actively involved in pushing this initiative forward.

Good News!

We received an email from Ariel Guarco stating that he had read the manifesto and substantially agreed with it. He copied Jeroen Douglas, Director General of ICA on the email. Now it's up to us to frame a communication to Jeroen to begin selling him on what we're asking for. If you signed with the note that you are open to emails about the manifesto, please look for an email about next steps soon.

What's next?

Here are the latest numbers of signatures:

Now that we've delivered the manifesto to Ariel Guarco, he will review it and hopefully decide to take it to the operational side, Jeroen Douglas, ICA Director General. We'll work with Mr Guarco to ensure that this happens.

So we have at least two paths for further work. 1) to develop the language we want to use in further communications with ICA and 2) to draft a second version that picks up on some the sticking points in the first version. Please point out any other paths that you believe would be useful in furthering the reach and message of the Cooperative Digital Infrastructure Manifesto.

Develop language to use with ICA

As a reminder, here are the items we suggested. We'll need to flesh them out:

1. Encourage standardization and interoperability, focusing on cooperative and citizen needs, (collective) consent, and democratic open (API) structures, within the cooperative economy and its various sectors.

2. Call for and support tech development based on open standards, to ensure standardization doesn’t pave the way only for commercial platforms. 

3. Promote solutions that are FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable).

4. Create knowledge and support hub(s) that educate cooperators and developers on these issues, and that cooperatives can turn to for finding open-source solutions and asking questions concerning the use of them. 

5. Call upon (local) governments for support: invest a percentage of innovation budgets in the cooperative digital commons, support cooperative start-ups, and make policies that favor platform cooperatives.

In thinking about this, I have some points that I believe might be useful, in no particular order of priority or presentation and not necessarily corresponding to the suggestions in the manifesto. Please comment on these and add your own to the discussion:

• Cooperatives all over the world are buying technology from capitalist companies not from the cooperative ecosystem. So we're buying into a supporting companies which do not share our values, and don't necessarily provide the features that we need as cooperatives.

• An entire tech cooperative ecosystem is seeking work and available to support the entire cooperative ecosystem. And many of us provide our deepest discounts to cooperatives and solidarity entities. In the spirit of Principle 6, Cooperation among Cooperatives, we should be giving business to this sector.

• The tech cooperative ecosystem skews younger than the cooperative ecosystem as a whole, so by encouraging these cooperatives, ICA would be working on its goal of attracting more young people to the movement.

• As an ecosystem, we should own and operate the technologies we use, in the spirit of Principle 5, Autonomy and Independence.

Version 2 of the Manifesto

We invite you to comment on and tighten up the manifesto. The first version of the manifesto was created by a small group of people. In the second version, we want to ensure a input from a much broader group of drafters.

We delivered the Manifesto to Ariel Guarco

Manuel Leiva, Redjar Cooperative and President of FACTTIC (a tech coop federation located in Argentina) and Steve Ediger, ChiCommons LWCA, Data Commons Cooperative, USFWC Tech Peer Network, and Patio (an international network of tech coops) delivered the Cooperative Digital Infrastructure Manifesto to Ariel Guarco on November 27th, 2024 in New Delhi, India at the International Cooperative Alliance’s (ICA) Global Cooperative Conference 2024. Mr Guarco had been well-prepared for the meeting and delivery by one of his colleagues from FACTTIC and was open to talking about the issues. Of course, we were just delivering it to him for the first time, so he did not have any immediate response. However, he indicated that he would review it, and, if he did not have any problems with it, he would facilitate our presentation of the manifesto to Jeroen Douglas, Director General of ICA.

There has been discussion of created a Manifesto version 2.0. We also might choose to wait and see what we can develop out of the first manifesto as it works its way through ICA channels. Also, we might do both. Let’s discuss it here.

Please continue to sign the Manifesto. We’ll update ICA on new signatures.

Greetings. We have not been very active on this channel, because we've been out gathering signatures. Here's the tally as of this moment, and more individuals, cooperatives and federations are signing on daily.

We are pleased to announce that we are arranging to deliver the manifesto in person to Mr Guarco at the International Cooperative Alliance General Conference (25-30 November 2024).

This signifies only the beginning of our work. This call will be followed up with actions and opportunities to get involved in building technology for the ecosystem. Also, we'll be starting on follow-up actions and a new version of the manifesto, with more teeth, and to a larger set of stakeholders.

The UN has declared 2025 as the International Year of the Cooperative. We believe that technology cooperatives can provide the tools to make 2025 truly the International Year of the Cooperative.

@Martha Giraldo Hi, Sorry, I did not see this post earlier. I'm not sure how we got connected, but thank you for joining! We are intending to deliver this manifesto/open letter this month at the International Cooperative Alliance meeting in New Delhi.

Dear Noemi, I already signed the manifesto but I see the last posts are form February this year, I don´t know where is the actual discussion. By the way, I would like to know where did you got my name and interest?

Thank you very much!,

Martha Giraldo

MINGAnet ( http://www.minganet.org/ ) coordinator

De: Noemi Giszpenc (via Loomio)
Enviado el: domingo, 29 de septiembre de 2024 3:09 p. m.
Para: migiraldo@gmail.com
Asunto: [cooperative-digital-infrastructure] Manifesto for sharing and commons

Hi @Yasuaki Kudo - thanks for the info and your email, I tried to reply but messages to your @yasuaki.com address seem to be bouncing back for me... :(