Presentazione preparata per il concorso ItaliaCamp - UsaCamp 2013 10 28

Presentazione del progetto al concorso di idee promosso da ItaliaCamp – per la messa in rete di idee e opportunità. Call UsaCamp

Questa proposta è interamente pubblicata alla pagina di riferimento http://www.befair.it/doc/doku.php?id=presentazione_italiacamp_20131028

La precedente proposta è alla pagina http://www.befair.it/doc/doku.php?id=presentazione_italiacamp

SEME: Solidarity economy made easier

Cosa si intende realizzare? (Sintesi dell'idea)

We are going to make easier the placement of solidarity economy.

This can be achieved through the following services:

1. people service: this is the very basic one, but the most important. Listen to real people needings, avoid to produce unuseful stuffs. This as a “customer service” for solidarity buyers groups or producers who would like some consultant services, suggestions or development on criteria and practices of solidarity economy.

2. web platforms consultant services: ability to suggest the appropriate web platform for needings.

3. agree with others' developers on RFC standard formats and protocols (new or already existent) to share, synchronize and publish data as open data or linked data

4. web platform and tools development: develop a web solution that can supply to some needings unfit by others at different levels. Being consulting partners and develop plugins and extensions for producers who wants to get involved in networks keeping their own internal tools. Develop an aggregator of open data in order to give some keys performance indicators of solidarity economy in globally, in different lands, and on different topics.

Dettagli

Solidarity economy is based on people, on networks of people, walking everiday towards a sustainable economy complying with the whole mankind, and nature. This can be achived paying attention to relatioships and direct or trusted knowledge between customers and producers who shares common valours. Many people through years in Italy, and in Brazil as I know, have developed common practices to agree on these valours and “make them real”.

As you probably have already get, this lead to a natural development of reputational networks which are based on knowledge, cleanness on relatioships, and trust.

The beFair group is strictly connected with networks of solidarity economy in Italy, we are activists since 4 years in Network of Solidarity Economy in Marche (REES Marche) as well as in Italy. At this time we manage servers for Marche organization and Italy organization with more than 150 mailing-list for solidarity buyers groups, social topics, events organization.

We have already developed a web platform Gasista Felice which is a free software platform for solidarity buyers groups (GAS). This can be useful for one or multiple GAS and is planned to be a distributed system so each district of solidarity based economy (DES) can have its own installed version.

Now we are going to improve the web platform and to improve our knowledge in others platforms in the web. We have already done a lot of analisys on existing platforms, and we know many of them have valuable features. We plan to tight connections with the software developers and agree on a RFC standards (like the ones developed by www.essglobal.info). We would then offer an IT infrastructure to collect open data/linked data in archives and giving key performance indicators on solidarity economy topics, lands and subjects involved. Along with their reputational status of course.

During last 2 years, GASes in Marche have been duplicated in amount and 6 months ago there were 62 groups, with 45 or 50 families belonging to them. Some more developed GASes have 200 families.

In Italy in the web archive http://www.retegas.org (quite unmaintained) there are 950 groups and 14 networks of solidarity economy.

Come? (Modalità di realizzazione)

We are going to split actions on 3 kinds: continuos, short period, medium/long period. We address actions to “actors” that can be of 3 kinds: solidarity economy buyers (GAS), solidarity economy producers, network of solidarity based economy We mean to build relationships and ring of trusts to make easier walking on a common path.

Continuos actions consist of:

a- scanning and cataloguing existing tools and best practices from high reputation actors. At this time this has already done by some member of the befair group b- “neighbouring”, listening, analyzing, identifying, assigning priority to needings from some basic test-case actors which increases the knowledge-base of beFair despite the fact that in future may be customers or not. c- organizing smart education and coaching activities on solidarity economy topics and criteria, focusing on “why the specific problem arose in your team” d- publishing and involving in taking action networks of solidarity economy media groups e- Sharing problems and solutions on the question/answer web platform: http://www.befair.it/supporto (italian) - transparency is the basic of our work. If we expose what we do, we could explain why we make some choices.

Short period actions consist of:

1- solving critical (we say: blocking) needings to the actors above, with any kind of known and valours compliant knowledge (in the hacking community, we say “a hack”). A proof that the problem can be solved and that we and the actor both can feel satisfactions: we are partners on the same path, connected beings. In this phase we will give priority to needings that could lead to maximum satisfaction with less effort. This both for us and the actor. 2. refining guidelines to take action in the process 3. taking by hand some tech referrers of GAS and present them Gasista Felice or some other tool to make GAS life easier. This action aims to tight connections between GAS techs referrers 4- improving the web platform Gasista Felice to make real some feature that some GAS consider of high priority before using it.

Medium/Long period actions consist of:

I- making a revised user interface and a stable version of web platform Gasista Felice II- contacting highly reputed producers which have their own tools and design and develop plugins to make easier integration with Gasista Felice III - Design and development of tools for the governance of the many installations of the Gasista Felice product IV- involving other developers of similar platforms to agree on an RFC standard, probably ones developed by http://www.essglobal.info V- design and development of an aggregator of open data to show key performace indicators of solidarity economy

Dove? (Luogo di realizzazione)

The base location is Fabriano, where basic participants on the beFair projet live. And where there is a real need for a new economy. Fabriano was a mono-product industrial location: the electrodomestic. Of course there is also some paper production, but the nowadays electrodomestic crisis has lead 1 citizien by 3 to unemployment.

It would be then developed in Marche region where there are many network connections, some solidarity economy districts and solidarity buyers groups already aware of the web platform already developed.

And then in the whole Italy basing on the fact that there is a connection and knowledge between solidarity groups and also free software groups. Some work of the development activity can be achieved through hackatons and hackmeeting. And of course … barcamp :)

Tempo

PHASE 0: organizing the team in a common location, agree on some new procedures, share some knowledge between team members, defining how new people can become part of the team –> 2 MONTHS

PHASE 1→… : after PHASE 0 all actions should be performed at the same time but with different periods. REVENUE GOAL 1: tight connections and Gasista Felice operational can be achieved in 6/8 MONTHS. REVENUE GOAL 2: producers plugins can be achieved in 1 YEAR AND 2 MONTHS. REVENUE GOAL 3: aggregation and key performance indicators can be achieved in 2 YEARS

Con quali risorse?

We have people, skills in development, education and team coaching, networks knowledge and reputation.

To have a good start and reach goals in timing declared above we need: - a location in Fabriano to settle our team - pay people for their work. I would be good to start with 8 people; 3 developers, 2 customers care, 1 secretary, 1 system administrator, 1 coordinator - to improve our IT infrastructure (at first will be based on VPS (Virtual Private Server)) for about 3200$/year

Every partner pays according the way it relates to the project: if he is directly involved, he gives time and competence, if he is “a user” (maybe a GAS which only use the software, or most often a producer) he can pay a minimal year fee. But the most of the revenue is given from custom analysis and development, and consultant/education activities.

After a first period of settlement of the fee and the evalutation of the effort needed to maintain the services, some new techniques should be develop to raise funds. Letting people know that our work is useful to “make easier life” rather than “promote our product”, we should rely on a kind of solidarity economy district (DES) fee. A fee that people organized in DES would be happy to pay is they get that our work is improving the impact of solidarity economy in their land.

Altre indicazioni

Our goal is to be like a grain of mustard seed. We plan to do our job, while dissolving in the curtain and giving life to a tree that could release some other seeds.

That's what we mean to be fair.

We'd like also answer to the policy call, but we cannot due to context rules. We prefer to partecipate in the business call because, we think it is more efficient to begin by a demo, and then talk about how we have imagined it.

Many efforts in years have been spent by us and by others in trying to share personal visions. This is good, but, in our experience and for our role, less effective due to different lifepaths each human being come.

Our list of basic documents can be found at: http://www.befair.it/doc/doku.php?id=rees_softwarelibero_basi

Personal declaration of Richard M. Stallman and Euclides Mance on opportunity of tight connections between solidarity economy and free software can be read at: http://stallman.org/solidarity-economy.html we are proud to give the idea of their meeting and make it feasible in Curitiba.

Thanks for this opportunity, sincerely the beFair team