Rebuilding tech
to build community

Our Journey Map

Creating a community network builds relationships, knowledge, and community power.

It’s hard work. It takes time, energy, and patience. But it’s worth it. Beyond creating internet access, the process builds power among local residents and communities to become their own tech visionaries and problem solvers.

Start Exploring the Journey

While each community’s journey is different, we’ve identified 8 building blocks for creating community-owned internet infrastructure. Communities move through these at their own speed and in different ways, but usually via 4 pathways, or sets of strategies, and practices. To explore the building blocks and pathways, the journey map also includes a collection of resources - from community stories to curriculum and organizing tools.

Click the blocks to expand them.

About the Journey

This Community Journey Map shows what CTNY & our partners have learned while building community WiFi projects in New York, Detroit, Los Angeles, and rural Tennessee. CTNY collaborated with the Parsons DESIS Lab and Digital Equity Lab to develop this map as an exploration of collaborative and participatory service design rooted in community needs. The map is a choose-your-own-adventure experience, which reflects the complex way a community must work with different conditions, elements, and priorities to build towards digital transformation. We hope that the stories and resources here will be useful for other communities heading into the journey.

Support for the Community Journey Roadmap and the New School's partnership with Community Tech NY in our South Bronx, and Tennessee engagements was provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation.

A Project by

Funded in part by

Design Team

Lead designer
Antonia Yunge Soruco
Design technologist
Mia Meusburger
Design strategists
Eduardo Staszowski
Lara Penin

Content Team

CTNY content wranglers
Raul Enriquez
Greta Byrum
Houman Saberi
Partner stories
Ever Bussey
Miliaku Nwabueze
Content editors
Ingrid Burrington
Raul Enriquez
Miliaku Nwabueze
Erica Kermani

Community Voices

Andy Gunn, April Jarocki,
Benedetta Piantella, Danny Peralta, Diana Nucera / Mother Cyborg, Elmer Perez, Greta Byrum, Monique Tate & Sara

In Partnership with

The Southern Connected Communities Project and Clearfork Community Institute (Eastern Tennessee), THE POINT CDC (South Bronx), The Kounkuey Design Initiative and Community Health Councils (South Los Angeles), The Detroit Community Tech Project and Equitable Internet Initiative partners (Detroit)
Community Tech NY
Community Tech NY
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