Seeds of Change 2023

Grant application for Merri-bek City Council seeds of change program.

What is your Seeds of Change idea? What would you like to do?

I'd like to kick-off a local non-profit web hosting organisation, currently called “Merri-bek Tech”. Merri-bek Tech would aim to provide organisations (predominantly community groups) and individuals with Merri-bek with free or at-cost hosted web software. This could mean things like websites, email & productivity tools, document collaboration, chat groups and forums. Unlike commercial offerings, which are typically run by large companies out of massive far-away data-centers, our offering would be locally served up from computers physically in Merri-bek, and ideally running on 100% local renewable energy.

To provide these services locally, we don't just need local computers, we need the local know-how to actually build and run the systems. So, that means that the largest organisation component of Merri-bek tech is a volunteer program that builds local skills needed to do this, and as such will have other benefits including access to job pathways (particularly for groups less represented in tech).

I've made a start on this already, and received various offers of help and equipment, but at this stage the organisation wont really come into being without me spending the next couple of years driving it from an idea to a stable and well-running organisation with

How does it connect to the program objectives and make a contribution to Merri-bek's community? Who will be involved in your activity and how will they be involved? E.g. what are you going to ask them to do? How are you planning on using the funding? What type of support would you like from a mentor? E.g. what types of knowledge or skills would be useful to you?