By Sanjay Fernandes | Tenacious Founder
Dear friend
At this moment in human history, there is so much noise: wars, authoritarianism, climate crisis, learning crises, inequality, and powerlessness. We remember when the internet emerged as a network that would allow interconnection and the free flow of information; we thought it would change humanity into a better version of itself. Instead, the internet has become a tool for surveillance and control, polarization, disinformation, and loneliness.
However, at SOLE Colombia, we have a simple yet powerful hypothesis: if we use the internet in groups, on shared devices, to learn and create, we will create not only a better version of the internet, but a more equitable, connected, and beautiful future together. Our hypothesis is materialized in our Library of the Future initiative. Imagine communities building physical spaces with connectivity and devices to use the internet as a group and connect with other communities. In these spaces, people use the internet to talk about what they know and learn from others.
Thus, for example, in our 3 SOLE Labs in La Guajira and Cauca, our SOLEros connect to share their cultures, their recipes, play games over distance, explore new group uses of the internet. That is information that is not yet on the internet. It is only there the moment you connect as a group with each other through a video call using the SOLE methodology. This information is not within the reach of artificial intelligence to process. It is human intelligence inventing the new, inventing the future that we want to create.
In the last months, thanks to your support and other grants we have prototyped the technologies, methodologies and networks so that the Library of the Future is a network of conversations that allows people to expand their preparation in action and reflection as citizens aware of their social, ethical and ecological responsibility. These are the other possible internets: connections that generate other ways of talking, learning and being together through the Internet.
The first major area of progress was creating and re-creating the Library of the Future through the SOLE Labs. Within this component, we made significant progress in the development of the scalable SOLE Lab prototype, now officially called SOLE Lab HUM (which stands for DIY in spanish). The project moved from research and design into full-scale prototyping and testing. The construction tests showed that the structure can be assembled and dismantled within a single day, confirming its potential as a scalable, lower-cost, and community-buildable infrastructure for using the Internet in groups. The feedback sessions after each of the 3 construction tests also allowed us to make immediate improvements. For example, moving from a numeric classification system to a color-coded system made the assembly process faster and easier to coordinate, designing different possibilities of roofing (in material and construction process) to allow for different financial and climatological contexts, and creating a low-cost DIY sound system to better distribute the sound of group-to-group interactions in video calls. The resulting prototypes include 2 versions: 1) a permanent structure and 2) a portable structure for emergency settings. The development also includes a user manual which enables non-expert communities set-up and connect their SOLE Labs to the LoF, a calculator to scale the production of SOLE Labs, and a simplified documentation of the SOLE Lab Experience published in the SOLE Voltaje website for any community around the world to set-up their own and connect to the others.
In this sense, the Library of the Future within the SOLE Lab has become a powerful solution towards meaningful connectivity (based on ISOC’s definition https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2025/10/what-is-meaningful-connectivity/) as its quality and speed of connectivity is usually better on the shared devices that are in the SOLE Lab than on the individualized devices whom saturate the signal; its reliability is based on communities being able to access the best possible signal in the SOLE Lab as it has the best solution which the community can afford in a self-managed way thanks to SOLE Voltaje solutions; there are devices for everyone in the community to use and the activities which they use them for in groups develop everyone’s skills together though self-organized learning and SOLE ++. Finally, it is safe and secure in that groups of people are able to navigate the internet together both in person and remotely with others with whom they develop relationships of trust and co-responsibility as well as determine what sites and services seem trustworthy together being part of the SOLE Movement. That way, in the SOLE Labs, other internets are possible when we connect with one another—many of us in one place with others in another—by using the Internet as a group to learn and create.
With your support, SOLE Colombia achieved a deeper contribution to its goal of building “other possible internets”: We helped communities move from being users of connectivity to becoming active shapers of how connectivity is understood, shared, and practiced.
The most important achievement was not only expanding access, but expanding agency. Through the SOLE Movement workshop, the participant communities strengthened their capacity to use the internet in groups, ask their own Big Questions, test solutions, reflect on their learning, and make decisions together. This matters because closing the digital gap is not only about devices or signal; it is about whether people can use technology without fear, with autonomy, confidence, and collective purpose.
The funding also helped us prove that The Library of the Future can operate as more than simply a physical or digital platform. It can work as a living system, a movement where communities, tools, stories, questions, and relationships interact. SOLE Voltaje became a practical expression of that vision by offering online and offline ways for people to explore connectivity and learn how to improve it from their own contexts.
This supports an internet that is open, useful, safer, and more locally meaningful. Through SOLE, the internet is explored collectively. That collective use makes learning more critical, more caring, and more connected to real community challenges.
Thank you for helping make this possible.
Your support continues to connect communities that are discovering their voice, reclaiming their agency, and building new possibilities one Big Question at a time.
With gratitude,
The SOLE Colombia Team
By Isabel Tafur | Arquitecta de futuros
By Isabel Tafur | Arquitecta de futuros
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
