Community Network Xchange enters its eighth year in 2024. CNX Asia-Pacific was first organised in 2017, focusing on bringing together community network practitioners and enthusiasts of community-driven Internet connectivity to exchange ideas and serve as catalysts for the grassroots connectivity movement. CNX has addressed various factors related to community networks, including understanding social and economic sustainability, the Internet of the people, promoting public Wi-Fi access, meaningful access, community networks for public goods, and connecting indigenous and mountain communities in its latest edition. Over the years, practitioners from various countries such as Bangladesh, South Africa, Argentina, Malaysia, Indonesia, Haiti, Kenya, Nepal, Malawi, Kyrgyzstan, and Pakistan have attended CNX to share their expertise.
This edition of CNX, “Building Communities for Rights to Access and Access to Rights,” aims to address the challenges of network deployment in rural and remote regions and the subsequent challenge of exclusion from entitlements. CNX aims to bring community-led and community-centred access solutions to the forefront so that different stakeholders, including philanthropic organisations, government, policymakers, and grassroots organisations, have a perspective on different models and their utility.
This year’s CNX is a collaborative effort by the Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF), Internet Society (ISOC), T-Hub Hyderabad, APNIC Foundation, Association for Progressive Communications (APC), Internet Society Foundation, Global Digital Inclusion Partnership (GDIP), Nepal Internet Foundation (NIF), World Summit Awards (WSA), Art and Collective for Digital Empowerment (A-CODE), and Wireless for Communities (W4C).
