Where open meets co-op
In the run up to OPEN 2020, which will now be an online event, we caught up with Samer Hassan from P2P Models, where they are investigating decentralizing power and value to deliver the collaborative economy using blockchain. OSB: What’s the latest news from P2P Models? SH: We’ve been mapping the ‘blockchain/DLT for social good’ ecosystem, with a focus on European … [Read more...]
The following blog is a guest post from Daniel Heery, from Charge My Street - a platform co-op that installs and operates community chargepoints for electric vehicles, which is currently raising money through community shares. An the first Open Conference back in 2017, I took part in the #DigiDen session with 2 other putative Platform Co-ops. We all pitched our ideas, … [Read more...]
The main challenge we need to solve in the platform co-op community is how to reach critical mass… and how to pass users from one platform to another. Fairbnb.coop is a platform co-op whose name precedes it. Everyone’s heard of the venture-capital-backed alternative that’s putting hotels and traditional B&Bs out of business, and Fairbnb.coop is the antithesis of that - a … [Read more...]
I see a real need for “scaled connectivity” to advance our work as part of a viable ecosystem. In the run up to OPEN 2020 in London in June, we interviewed Sarah, Mckinley, Director for European Programs for The Democracy Collaborative and the European Representative for the Next System Project. OSB: What is The Democracy Collaborative? SM: The Democracy Collaborative is a … [Read more...]
We're very excited to announce that OPEN 2020 has partnered with Redecentralize.org - a movement of people pioneering technologies and governance models to redecentralize the web. Redecentralize seek a world of open platforms and protocols with real choices of applications and services for people. They care about privacy, transparency and autonomy - so are very much on the … [Read more...]
What would a sustainable, universally beneficial economy look like? "Like a doughnut," says Oxford economist Kate Raworth. In this eye-opening talk, she explains how we can move countries out of the hole, where people are falling short on life's essentials, and create regenerative, distributive economies that work within the planet's ecological limits. Join Kate at OPEN 2020 … [Read more...]
This excellent animated video came out in 2010 in response to the failed 2009 Copenhagen Summit. It advocates a network of organisations that together could crowd-source solutions to the climate crisis, namely: A Green Knowledge Trust - A green Wikipedia with a practical focus; a how-to guide for ordinary people tasked with setting up functional, low carbon societies. … [Read more...]
In his paper on ‘Democracy and E-Democracy - A discussion of the possibility of supplanting traditional representative democracy with e-democracy’, Ehud Shapiro asks “Why has an Internet revolution of democracy not yet occurred?” He concludes that delivering e-democracy is more difficult than it seems, highlights the core values of democracy and uses these to detail the … [Read more...]
One of our key projects at The Open Co-op is The Open Credit Network, which evolved out of OPEN 2018 and our previous work on ideas for a co-op coin. Having tested a proof-of-concept and visited Sardex, a successful mutual credit network in Sardinia, we have now developed a bespoke directory and accounting system to enable UK businesses to trade via mutual credit. The … [Read more...]
The Open Co-op is proud to announce Paul Mason will be attending at OPEN 2019. Paul wrote the important and extremely timely book ‘PostCapitalism’ in 2015 and has recently published ‘Clear Bright Future: A radical defence of the human being’. He is a journalist, writer, documentary film‑maker, and international speaker about the impact of networks and automation on politics … [Read more...]