Anthillhacks 22.23 Bamboo tower, LokaLR, Mesh network and that loop
Anthillhacks 22.23, iruWay ola, Devarayanadurga foothills area near Tumkur, India
AntHill is a metaphor for the world of structure and complexity that exists just beneath the surface of everything around us. And Ants are our inspiration - embodies co-operation, coordination and communication as core principles of building communities.
“A ‘C O W’ by Bhavya, Rithika, Shalini and Tania by Bamboo tower”
Imagine groups of people from different domains living together for a period of time.. The idea of Anthillhacks is to be inclusive of city folks, of village folks, of women and non-binary, of educated and the low-literate to get to participate and be together. Anthillhacks history
Traditional bread making with songs dedicated to vistors.
The location itself brings about an intermingling of thought-systems that would not have interacted otherwise. This inspires collaborations giving birth to eye-opening new productions and curation of existing narratives and annotations of real world objects at the location. (We released a 3D proceedings of event).
COWMesh, the Wifi-mesh set up here, covers some villages, forest areas, historic sites and the hack camps. Servers and services are deployed locally on the mesh. Vast no signal region incentivises trekking in forest or to a lake for sessions while keeping connected to the villages of the event as a whole.
A 10km wifi-wire from Tumkur to the villages and COWMesh architecture.
Anthillhacks 22.23 is APC supported research and campaign activity to prototype infrastructure for meaningful community connectivity.
Representation from traditional groups at anthillhacks gave a glimpse of what it takes to imagine sustainable and equitable future ecosystems. Handmaking from natural material, traditional storytelling using scrolls, inclusive gender identities were present as background music..
..while participants worked on mesh-technologies, services and mapped the resources with local communities.
dWebCamp meets Anthillhacks
Anthillhacks 22.23 took to a new turn as some participants from dWebCamp flowed into Anthillhacks activities. Towards the end of dWebCamp, Hiure and Tania agreed to visit for a 3 month residency working on opening openWRT and traffic negotiations in a context of community networks like COWMesh. Rithika and Max decided to cycle to the camp with Sanketh. Alice brought Mark and Max of sfpc.school!
Sustainability activities Sarbani proposed Bamboo tower - we were not sure if we have the needed bamboo in our area (would be funny to bring bamboo from far away as an activity of sustainability). With Subroto’s help we figured out the Bamboo in the grooves around was what was needed. Bamboo tower catalysed the LokaLR activity. Video of the making of Bamboo Tower: https://vimeo.com/799968976
Gender
Jogatis brought in aspiciousness of 3rd gender by ingurating rituals of tower. Community “Rush Crush” cafe by Rashmi. video clip: https://stories.janastu.org/collection/40/media/985e5d7b-3374-4ef6-9a09-ebd735a6dc27
Interviewed women in the community (Halekote,TMH) - Tuschia Sarkar
session on Women of Community Networks - Alex, Tania lead the session with Sarbani, Vishala, Channapatna group and Ruchika leading a session on Equity.
Kumabaralli kere (lake) was full - reminiscent of the floods of the past year - which called for a lake time of frolic! While with Tania on a solitary rock as she had received a sad news of a friend that morning. 
LokaLR
Sarbani had initiated Libre Routers (LR) to be locally made LR in india (calling it LokaLR) as LR is open hardware. Bamboo tower suggests that we can forward the idea of an independent of power grid LR communication node setup: solar power, server, LR node, FX ports, communication setup. Thanks to Mike and Elektra we had a plan of action. Amudan of Wakoma
video clip: https://stories.janastu.org/collection/40/media/6d466581-1465-48bd-b4a3-ee1569f65351
CoP Hiure and Tania - conversations start with Nico on the way back from dwebcamp.
The idea went about how we can pretty much use the same amout of money set for COP, APC’s Communities of Practice, but make it an inperson residency for Hiure and Tania provided they were upto this.
Organic farming
A field visit to Maheshanna Natural Farm with Lydia and group. All relating to each other and what they grow in their regions.
Lydia (Mary) collected some coffee beans and show us how to get a gentle wine from the berries. video clip: https://stories.janastu.org/collection/40/media/370ec680-457b-41ca-b9f4-b90929fa2dac
PGSOC
Participatory Guarantee System for Organic Certification.
Participants: Timbaktu, Buffalloback (Ragi halli), Keystone and Design Beku / Maya group from Channapattana
Probir (story painter and singer)
Crafts
Siddavva and Madevappa and communityYour browser does not support the video tag.
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Deepak and Ajmal session
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New years event (Adithya, David, Max and all)
- Manjamma’s special cooking for new year.
- Max’s session on Lichen
- Manoj’s session on Batteries and power management
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Mark interviewed Dinesh, Sanketh, Max and others.
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Kumbarali Walk - Dinesh lead
- Devarayanadurga biodiversity, history and heritage walk - Dinesh lead
Contrapuctus ensuring mouths wide open. Kashish’s daily log of participation
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Jogathi’s TMH program
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TCC session TMH (Thimmanayakanahalli)
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Cowmesh Demo and Antenna making session - Locals
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Baking session by Ragihalli group - crafterspace
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Mahadevappa on basket making workshops - local resource Jondu
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Block printing - crafterspace
- Namma cycle contributed cycles to the event
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Cycle rides into the wild rural areas and water bodies. In this terrain that includes unique biodiversity with amazing anthills and baniyan trees.
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Durgadahalli place had been particularly a place to find soothingly calm sunset time
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Kashish’s - initiating singing together session
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Young Volunteers doing cooking session and community eating
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HQ helped in post event activity
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Varun and Sushma - guest musicians recorded folk songs on bamboo, theatre songs, instrumental local radio
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Psuedo - contributed applicances that made Jaaga palet racks a more functional space
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Max and Punita did laptop stands, yoga seats by reusing materials
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Vijaylakshmi’s Bamboo and mud plastering session
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Birthdays and celebration - Alice did a collection of artistic expression on a web page posted on the local server
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Map of the network - Huire, Sanketh and Tania
- Shashi, Punita the documentors of the event
Build
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Pre-event build activities - Bamboo tower, local mesh on bamboo tower, Cowmesh Network fix, Cowlanding page and services setup, Event annoucements in the village,