Ground Truth

Does a trending hashtag equal a real movement? Can a viral video substitute for a town hall meeting? Is digital activism a modern revolution, or is it just old-school community organizing in a faster, more chaotic wrapper?

What happens when a protest in Lagos can be organized by someone in London? Does a shared hashtag create a truly shared struggle? Has the internet erased the borders for community organizing, or has it just drawn new, more complicated battle lines?

Colombia’s rural landscapes stretch from coffee farms to Indigenous territories, stitched together by communities often overlooked by government and industry. For women in these villages, exclusion became an invitation to innovate.

What started as a response to Detroit's extreme digital divide, where 40% of residents lack internet access, has evolved into something bigger: a blueprint for community self-reliance that challenges fundamental assumptions about how internet infrastructure should work.

In rural Kenya, the Dunia Moja Community Network faced the challenge of connecting a dispersed population. Their solution was the "Boda-Fy," a mobile hotspot mounted on a local motorcycle taxi (boda boda). This transformed a piece of existing community infrastructure into a roving digital hub, bringing connectivity to where it was needed most.

Mamaila’s network did not arrive from a corporate tower. It was built with the village’s own determination, rooted in trust and reciprocity. For many women, the internet became a tool for education, for launching small businesses, and for telling stories on their own terms. It is, in every sense, infrastructure grown with Mamaila, not grafted onto it.