Wireless Toronto: presentation

[gabesawhney]

Wireless Toronto: presentation

Description

Wireless Toronto is a community wireless network run by volunteers, dedicated to the growth of no-cost wireless Internet access in Toronto's public and publicly accessible spaces. Since the group's founding in May 2005, volunteers set up almost 40 hotspots across the GTA, including some of the city's largest: St. Lawrence Market, Yonge-Dundas Square, and the York Quay Centre at Harbourfront.
At its peak, the network served over 1000 connections per day.

For a variety of reasons, the Wireless Toronto network has shrunk over time, and today only a handful of nodes remain active. This presentation will outline the group's history, successes and learnings.

Type: talk
Length: 1 hour
Additional considerations: none

Session Objectives

• To communicate Wireless Toronto's context, objectives, motivations, governance, funding model and technologies.
• It could be valuable to those interested in the history of civic technology and volunteer-run networks in Toronto.
• It could also be valuable to those working on community networking projects, to learn from the experience of others.

Material and Technical Requirements

• Facility to show PPT-style presentation

Presenter(s)

Name: Gabe Sawhney
Email: gabe@pwd.ca
URL: wirelesstoronto.ca [group website]
Twitter: @gggg @wirelesstoronto

Interested in attending the sprint July 16-18: N
Interested in a community billet: N

Presenter Bio

Gabe Sawhney is an experience designer, civic technologist and innovation strategist. He's a founder of several community and civic tech initiatives, including Code for Canada, Civic Tech Toronto, Wireless Toronto and [murmur].