2026-07-10 –, The Seedbed
How do small-scale agroecological farmers successfully incorporate and govern their own technologies? This session bridges the vital social dimensions of decentralized tech with real-world, grassroots applications. Drawing from her work in Brazil, Nadia Coelho Pontes will open the session by unpacking the human, cultural, and community elements required to build digital infrastructure that truly serves local needs. The session will then transition into case studies from Luke Smith (Origin Co-op), Tamisha Lee (Jamaica Network of Rural Women Producers), and Abdallah Nyangason (African Bee Consultants), who will share their firsthand experiences building community-led solutions across different global contexts.
Finally, all presenters will converge for a 30-minute interactive discussion, inviting attendees to synthesize the learnings and reflect on their own contexts and regions.
This session explores how decentralized tools can be introduced to support—rather than disrupt—existing grassroots community networks. It is divided into three interconnected segments that move logically from a social framing to real-world examples, concluding in an interactive group discussion. The block begins with an introductory framing analyzing the cultural social fabric and trust frameworks required before rural communities can meaningfully adopt or interface with sovereign technical models. It then shifts to a localized showcase highlighting practical implementations of food sovereignty, parametric insurance architectures, and polycultural farm systems built directly from the needs of the land. The session concludes with a structured participatory dialogue mapping common global patterns of corporate tech enclosure and co-creating regional pathways toward systemic autonomy.
Founder of the Tekoporã project, technical advisor, and core contributor to the DWeb community. She focuses on building decentralized infrastructure alongside grassroots groups like the Ecovida Agroecology Network to support sustainable forestry and food sovereignty in Brazil.
Tamisha Lee is a dynamic and influential leader driving rural women's empowerment and agricultural advancement in Jamaica. As President of the Jamaica Network of Rural Women, she spearheads initiatives that foster sustainable agricultural practices, enhance economic opportunities, and advocate for the critical role of women in the agricultural sector.
(Speaker to fill out)
Electronic and Computer Engineer from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). Master’s student in the Graduate Program in Technology for Social Development at the Interdisciplinary Center for Social Development (NIDES/UFRJ). Extension researcher at the Technical Solidarity Center (SOLTEC/UFRJ). Software developer at the EITA cooperative, developing free/libre software technologies for grassroots social movements, and collaborating developer at TEKOPORÃ, a free software collective dedicated to creating community-oriented management solutions guided by agroecological principles.