Baby Lab is the first Ivorian Fab Lab included in the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) registry and has been labelled as a Territory of Tomorrow by their foundation. The space is located in Abobo, one of the most popular towns in the Ivory Coast. In this meeting and sharing place, we advocate for a development model that might also start in popular neighborhoods involving young people and the youngest between 8 and 15 years of age as philosophy. We have as a mission to reduce the disparities between the population by facilitating access to digital literacy in disadvantaged areas and encouraging innovation in extreme precariousness conditions. Our activities include the introduction to computer coding (21st century language), the recycling of electronic waste, the promotion of open source and free software and the development of technologically  innovative business ideas.

E-COOP TRADE (e-cooptrade.coop) is a cyber platform that serves as an alternative marketplace for sustainable products produced by cooperatives and communities in the Philippines. The platform is designed to mainstream sustainable community products with good stories to tell about People, Planet, Prosperity & Peace (4P’s) but hardly reach the market.

A handholding partnership between the Philippine Cooperative Development Authority (CDA), the Federation of Peoples’ Sustainable Development Cooperative (FPSDC), Red Root Multi-Purpose Cooperative (Redroot) and the cooperative communities has been formed for this initiative.  E-cooptrade aims to boost the cooperative movement’s competitiveness in an ever changing global market.   It promotes quality produce, local delicacies, organic products, ornaments, handicrafts, and so much more.

A unique innovation, e-cooptrade.coop attracts not only those who are always on-the-go and health-conscious individuals but also those who want to contribute in changing the world.  Buying thru the platform not only empowers local economies, encourages solidarity economy but also supports the kind of growth that closes inequities without impeding the rights of the future generations to live sustainably.

New policies for Commons Collaborative Economies: the experience from Procomuns.net in Barcelona (Spain), a project for promoting digital peer production and civic alternatives to the sharing economy, inspired by the cooperative, solidarity and social economy.

Barcola is a Barcelona City Hall multi-stakeholder work group exploring Commons-Based Peer Production and the Collaborative Economy, and one of the organizing entities behind Procomuns.net., organisations  like guifi.net, Fab Lab BCN, Goteo.org, Amical Wikimedia and other local initiatives.

In the last two decades we have seen the emergence of Internet-enabled
collaborative communities building shared and common resources.
Commons-based Peer Production is rapidly growing, not just for the
disruptive and very successful cases of software (with free and open software) and encyclopedias (Wikipedia) but also for information
(OpenStreetMap, Wikihow), hardware (FabLabs, Open Source Ecology),
accommodation (Couchsurfing) and finance/currency (Goteo.org, local
coins). More recently, we have also seen the emergence and growth of
hybrid models which retain some similar organizational logic, such as being based on collaborative principles, but privatizing others. This
is the case in corporate-based peer production such as Uber or Airbnb.
Are they truly collaborative economies? This issue opens up a series
of debates and opportunities about how to retain the commons and
socially transformative dimension in the collaborative economy through the recognition of the distinctive values of these modes of
production, beyond value approaches which focus on monetization, and new forms of open/peer/platform cooperativism.

Main objectives of the project are:

To analyze and evaluate the situation of the commons-oriented model within the collaborative economy in the context of Barcelona.

To map the collaborative economy cases and commons-oriented models within the context of Barcelona.

To elaborate recommendations towards the planning of public policies in that field.

To enhance the dialogue between the social and solidarity economy and commons oriented production.

More info: http://procomuns.net/en/about-2/

Since 2013, the Puebla Iberoamerican University, through the Social Idit Ibero Social Economy Project, has incubated and propelled over 80 businesses and social economy collective organizations, most of which are located in poor or vulnerable areas, by providing them with technological development and innovation tools. This responds to the fact that social and technological innovation in line with the principles of social economy have been proven to boost and increase the subsistence of such groups and organizations, all the while helping the individuals who make them up solve their individual and collective needs. The Puebla Fab Lab, an ally of the project, has been a key player for the innovation of the products and processes in these initiatives. The Fab Lab has enabled the entrepreneurs to gain access to the technological and methodological tools which have brought about innovations. In turn, innovation has resulted in greater sales and income. Two such examples are the Colectivo Analco and the Taller de Fabricación Digital e Innovación, which have adopted associative business models.