serendipityoucity

Last night a heterogeous group  of people (Alex, Nathalie, Eric, JP, George, Masa et moi) gathered at a new Taiwanese Tea shop in my neighbourhood - Cuppa - to discuss developing an interprovincial BILINGUE community wireless group - OGWifi. C’est formidable!

It was lovely to introduce bubble tea with pearl, Hotpot soup, Asia style café culture and my neighbourhood to a new group of people.

And, it was really fantastic, over tea, to discuss the formalities of setting up an organization, social technical issues, community infrastructures, models of cooperation, logos, gadgets, collaboration, banking, community building, and AP, authentication, routers, wifidog, chillispot and infrastructure determinism.

Afterwards, George discussed the possibility starting up a group in Ottawa modeled on the Social Tech Brewing Company which is

an informal gathering of people working on, or interested in, the intersection of technology and the not-for-profit community in Canada.

My favorite! 

There is more! We also chatted about a new pixel purchasing fundraising scheme where for 10$s you can replace a pixel on an image of lets say the current prime minister, and participate in the creation of a whole new picture!  Crazy!

Next thing we know we are chatting with our wonderful host - Daniel - at Cuppa who showed us the newly renovated upstairs space that is really quite perfect for meetings, presentations and discussion groups.  Guess what… & stay tuned cuz something fun is cooking in my hood!

My evening ended with a great conversation on Somerset street, under the urban stars with George and Eric about the work of Amnesty International in Canada, Bill C36, Arar, and the work of challenging stereotypes, perceptions and assumptions of freedom in Canada. 

Serendipitously an OGWifi executive meeting reminded me that I should not take personal freedom for granted, further, that it is a priviledge to work with a great bunch of new people and to learn & apply skills to build a new creative socio-technical real-virtual community.

Sometimes great stuff happens accidently on purpose in the most unexpected ways & places!

Check out - Cuppa - 814 Somerset 4 shops west of Booth - their mandate is: "to bring people together, create closeness and coziness in the community" Right around the corner from my house - the best!