Sarantaporo.gr Non Profit Organization is awarded financial and consulting support by the Ashoka Impact Project

yiota — Mon, 14 Nov 2016 09:51:14 +0000

Ashoka [1] is a global non-profit, non-governmental organization focused in promoting social entrepreneurship since 1980. It applies worldwide a social impact empowerment program, called the "Ashoka Impact" [2], which aims to identify the most promising social purpose initiatives, assist in their organization and support them to multiply their positive impact on society. The program was launched in Greece during the past year with the support of Accenture [3] and The People's Trust [4]. Sarantaporo.gr NPO, a wireless community network with which netCommons stands in close collaboration, is one of the seven Greek initiatives that were selected in the first implementation of this program.

The seven initiatives attended the six-month Impact program from March till July 2016. During this period they elaborated on their social business plan under the guidance of a mentor, who was provided by Accenture. The aim of the program was to empower the social initiatives to multiply their social impact in a sustainable way. Towards this aim they were provided with professional support, mentorship, training workshops and access to relevant tools. At the same time they had the opportunity to access Ashoka's wide network of social entrepreneurs and collaborating organizations.

In an award ceremony on October 24th, three initiatives, whose projects met predefined evaluation criteria, were awarded with financial support of 8.000€ each by The People's Trust to further develop their business steps. Sarantaporo.gr NPO was proudly one of the three awarded projects. The funding and support will assist them with their ongoing work towards implementing their social business plan and growing their impact.

Congratulations Sarantaporo.gr!

[1] Ashoka https://www.ashoka.org/en/about-ashoka
[2] Ashoka Impact http://www.ashoka-impact.gr/
[3] Accenture https://www.accenture.com/us-en/company
[4] The People's Trust http://www.thepeoplestrust.org

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Finding "commons ground" with Sarantaporo.gr

yiota — Thu, 20 Oct 2016 07:44:18 +0000

Sarantaporo.gr is a six-year old community network in the north-eastern part of Greece, serving 14 villages in an agricultural area near Mount Olympus. It was originally conceived as a means to address the digital divide in Greece by a small group of people, who ever since play an important role in its implementation, management, and constant evolution.

In the context of netCommons, we (AUEB team & Nethood team) have had a series of fruitful meetings and interactions with the Sarantaporo.gr core team. The main aims of these meetings have been to identify the real problems and needs of the local community that is served by the network, and jointly propose ways and actions to address them. The ultimate ambition is to turn the community network into a tool that best serves the local agricultural economy and an integral asset of what could become a new generation of techno-agricultural cooperatives. The seeds planted in these meetings have flourished in several directions:

We have participated in an event organized by Sarantaporo.gr in the area of Elassona and informed the locals about the goals of netCommons, discussed their needs in person and received feedback for the proposed ideas.
We are currently in the proccess of designing an application that addresses a basic part of these needs drawing on crowdsourcing principles. Its aim is to facilitate locally the information exchange and the provision of assistance in different types of tasks. The application itself is expected to serve as an incentive for enhancing the participation and active involvement of the locals in the community network.
Core members of Sarantaporo.gr have recently joined our team as members of the netCommons project making the collaboration with them even tighter. We are jointly organizing a workshop in the home area of the community network, to bring the local community in touch with stakeholders from the areas of agriculture, ICT, and the commons.

AUEB team: Panagiota Micholia, Merkouris Karaliopoulos, Iordanis Koutsopoulos
Nethood team: Panayotis Antoniadis
Sarantaporo.gr members: George Klissiaris, Vassilis Chryssos, Rossie Simeonova

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Sarantaporo.gr Non Profit Organization is awarded financial and consulting support by the Ashoka Impact Project

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Finding "commons ground" with Sarantaporo.gr

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