MAZI

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= "a combination of wireless technology, low-cost hardware, and free/libre/open source software (FLOSS) applications, for building local networks, mostly known today as community wireless networks".

URL = http://mazizone.eu/

Description

"The MAZI grant application for the EU Horizon2020 CAPS framework was successful and our project starts officially on January 1st, 2016.

MAZI means “together” in Greek and the goal of MAZI is to provide technology and knowledge in order to

  • empower those who are in physical proximity, to shape their hybrid urban space, together, according to the specificities of the respective local environment
  • generate location-based collective awareness as a basis for fostering social cohesion, conviviality, participation in decision-making processes, self-organization, knowledge sharing, and sustainable living
  • facilitate interdisciplinary interactions around the design of hybrid space and the role of ICTs in society.


MAZI wishes to invest in an alternative technology, what we call Do-It-Yourself networking, a combination of wireless technology, low-cost hardware, and free/libre/open source software (FLOSS) applications, for building local networks, mostly known today as community wireless networks. By making this technology better understood, easily deployed, and configured based on a rich set of customization options and interdisciplinary knowledge, compiled as a toolkit, MAZI will empower citizens to build their own local networks for facilitating hybrid, virtual and physical, interactions, in ways that are respectful to their rights to privacy, freedom of expression and self-determination.

The MAZI initiative has been bootstrapped by the NITlab at the Univeristy of Thessaly, the Zurich-based non-profit organization NetHood, the Edinburgh Napier University, the Design Research Lab at the Berlin University of the Arts, the Open University, the INURA Zurich Institute, SPC in London, Prinzessinnengarten in Berlin, and the nomadic group unMonastery.

But there are many related networks of researchers, practitioners, and activists with whom we wish to engage in further collaborations around the ideas developed by MAZI.


How does the MAZI initiative plan to achieve its objectives?

MAZI will take into account different perspectives namely technological, scientific, political and social, and build a toolkit, which will include:

  • Installation scripts and hardware options for covering a target area with a DIY network
  • FLOSS web applications adapted to address the needs of location-based exchanges and interactions and to be easily customized according to the context
  • Ideas and blueprints of the design of physical artefacts that could complement the deployed network
  • A rich set of guidelines for the customization of the functionality offered by the different toolkit offerings.

MAZI calls a concrete instantiation of the toolkit, the deployed network infrastructure with a selected set of services and application the MAZI zone (from which comes the name of this web site). " (http://mazizone.eu/)