Short Story
In 2021, a small group of people gathered in the southern California desert for the first Tribal Wireless Bootcamp. Organized by a loose collection of people with a long history of building and encouraging nontraditional broadband networks, the focus was on building, maintaining, and troubleshooting wireless networks in Indian Country.
Tribal Broadband Bootcamp
Story
What is the Tribal Broadband Bootcamp?
In 2021, a small group of people gathered in the southern California desert for the first Tribal Wireless Bootcamp. Organized by a loose collection of people with a long history of building and encouraging nontraditional broadband networks, the focus was on building, maintaining, and troubleshooting wireless networks in Indian Country.
The Tribal Broadband Bootcamp (TBB) is a 3-day intensive learning experience focused on building and running Tribal Internet networks. You’ll interact with network operators, industry professionals, and broadband experts who walk through what it takes to build a network and run an Internet Service Provider. Whether you have three decades or three days of experience – it doesn’t matter. The TBBs explain what the puzzle pieces are and how they fit together.
Goals & Culture
TBB’s primary goal is to foster a network of Indigenous people working across Indian Country to build broadband networks and develop the best practices needed to ensure communities have high quality Internet access if they want it.
Additional Goals Include:
- Inspiring people to create and work at Tribal Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in their own communities.
- Building confidence among Tribal ISP staff so they can tackle challenges.
- Helping Tribes gain more control over their digital futures.
- Demystifying technology, law, policy, and more – Indian Country needs more of their people working at all levels in this field.
To achieve our goals, we strive to create an open, respectful, and supportive culture at our events. We understand that we all have something to learn, and that we all have something to teach and share. It’s important to us that everyone feels comfortable enough to ask what they might be afraid is a “dumb question.” In our experience, these questions often help resolve confusion others have too, and are great opportunities for collective learning. The Bootcamps aim to promote an inclusive environment that is conducive to building and strengthening trust so that we can continue this challenging work long into the future.
Please visit our Tribal Broadband Bootcamp site. https://tribalbroadbandbootcamp.org/
