2026-07-09 –, P2P Portal
A networking session designed to build bridges between the mesh networking, P2P, and local-first communities. Through structured conversations and collaborative reflection, participants will discover shared interests, uncover opportunities for collaboration, and make new cross-community connections.
Many of the challenges and opportunities explored in the mesh, P2P, and local-first ecosystems overlap, yet the communities working on them do not always have opportunities to connect. This 60-minute session is designed to foster new relationships, surface common interests, and strengthen connections across these communities.
We begin with 30 minutes of speed dating, where participants rotate through a series of short conversations. Each person will introduce themselves and their project, share what they are interested in, and describe what they are currently looking for. This format helps participants quickly identify potential collaborators, allies, and learning opportunities.
The second half of the session uses Emma's Dreams & Seeds framework. Together, participants will explore the futures they would like to see emerge ("dreams") and identify the existing projects, practices, communities, and initiatives ("seeds") that can help make those futures a reality. The exercise aims to reveal shared aspirations while grounding them in concrete opportunities for action and collaboration.
Zenna 'zelf' Elfen is an internet architect and weaver of networks. With roots in the local hackerspace Forskningsavdelningen in Malmö, she has since explored seizing the means of local-production—through computer controlled mechanics—in FabLabs across the world, as well contributed towards building up the realm of Peer-2-Peer and Local-First networks, primarily through Secure Scuttlebutt, the gossping protocol. In the more recent years she's been involved with organizing parts of the Next Generation Internet together with NGI Search and NLnet. Currently she runs a podcast, called solarcast and in her spare time she is slowly growing a research institute located on a historical 1777 farm in the south of Denmark called Vildgård.
Mathias is a contemporary artist living in Switzerland and Berlin. He is co-founder and project manager of qaul.net, an off-the-grid p2p mesh messenger App. Mathias is active in community networks such as Freifunk, and helped build up community mesh networks around the world. He is a board member of the Special Interest Group for Community Network Infrastructures of the Internet Society.