ChiCommons Cooperative & BlockShare

[SteveEdiger]

ChiCommons presents the Chi Hack Night pre-party

Every Tuesday at 6:30pm, bring your dinner/drink for virtual social mixing and your ideas/breakout group pitches to share. We'll mingle informally online for a half-hour and then join Chi Hack Night!

ChiCommons Info Session

After the Chi Hack Night presentation, join us, and we'll answer your questions and orient you. We have exciting projects to develop and expand social and digital tools, services, and strategies for our communities -- Projects that need volunteers and workers. Technical, data, business, design, writing, research, testing, and social science skills at all experience levels are welcome!

---

ChiCommons Cooperative

ChiCommons is a multi-stakeholder cooperative organization that grew out of the local Civic Tech and Sustainability movements. We believe in empowered, integrated, equitable, cooperative/solidarity economies across the Chicago region; connected globally. For more information, tune in here every Tuesday at around 8pm Central Time. See below for our current initiatives!

Chicago Cooperative and Solidarity Map: to better identify and connect us

An evolving map of over 700 cooperatives and solidarity entities ranging from community gardens to worker cooperatives to credit unions that put people and planet over just profits

Map Volunteer Needs:

We are looking for Python, React, Geographic Info Systems (GIS), and User Interface (UI) Design, and social science/ survey design/ analysis expertise

BlockShare: rebuilding hyper-local community in the digital age

Blockshare is a planned wireless mesh network connected to a server and an Internet gateway. The idea is to have Neighborhood-based, -owned, and -operated wifi networks with local servers and software.

• The software gives each neighborhood tools to share their garden produce, time, talents, tools, rides, and mutual aid
• Optionally, neighborhood members could eventually get access to the Internet for wholesale type pricing
• BlockShare couldbe the basis to build community software and social media beyond current ad-supported clickbait models that exploit division and strife

BlockShare Volunteer Needs:

For this project, we're looking for wireless expertise (Mikrotik/Ubiquiti), community organizers, researchers, financial analysts, electrical/ telecom engineers, construction/ contractor management, and GIS experts

ChiCommons Consulting: how we sustain ourselves

Chi Commons Consulting is a unique worker-owned cooperative consultancy, part of ChiCommons Cooperative.

We help local businesses, movements, nonprofits, and other cooperatives flourish. We provide practical and innovative business and technology consulting services to establish and improve our clients’

• Online / web / digital presence – for visibility and survival
• Customer/ stakeholder experience; for revenue, retention, and reputation
• Team communication and dynamics; for greater performance
• Networks and info technology (IT) to stay up and running; for robust operations

As such, we seek new worker owners with skill-sets to meet evolving client needs. Whether you are a small-business sales ace, full-stack software developer, user experience design pro, or seasoned community organizer, we may be able to help you get work on client projects. Interested? Learn more here

ChiCommons Consulting Needs:

• User Experience / User Interaction
• Finance / bookkeeping / accounting / CPA
• Sales/business development (to small/ medium businesses and nonprofits)
• Content management / copy writing
• React / Javascript
• Python
• Quality Assurance / Testing
• WordPress
• Geographic Information Systems / Web GIS
• Graphic design
• Digital marketing / SEO
• Cloud computing
• Database experts
• Community organizers
• Sociologists
• Organizational Designers
• Technology Trainers
• Your other skills we have not listed

If you are an experienced, motivated, community-minded professional dedicated to great client experience and a self-governing workplace, talk to us!

Core Team

Alvyn Walker, Chuck Lay, Dave Alvarado, Elve Vertus, Felipe Mitchell, Jonathon Rogoff, Nurul Eusufzai, and Steve Ediger

Slack Channel

Set up Chi Hack Night Slack and look for the "chicommons_coop channel"