Oxfordshire Connects

Oxfordshire has a rich network of organisations committed to building a sustainable, fairer, and healthier county; these projects are working collectively in areas such as waste reduction, community transport, food inequality, community housing, sustainable energy, biodiversity, land ownership, and social justice.

In our tech-centric world, access to data, along with access to the right tools, skills, and capacity to analyse that data, is crucial for any organisation to achieve its mission. However, data isn’t equally accessible to all, and most of the best-known tech tools are profit-based platforms designed for the needs of profit-making businesses. Though some of these tools can be beneficial for social action groups, they may also be prohibitively expensive, inappropriate for their needs, or in conflict with their values.

But there are many examples of alternative, community-led tech solutions being developed. These solutions are open-source and encourage collective activity. They are informed by local needs and focus on the core problems that social action groups are working to address.

Over the past year, the Oxfordshire Connects project has been exploring ways to develop and improve the community tech that is available to Oxfordshire’s social action organisations in order to help them achieve their missions.

Read the full report here

Oxfordshire Connects is led by Digital Commons Cooperative (DCC) and Community Action Groups Oxfordshire (CAG). It evolved out of the Owned by Oxford community wealth building pilot, which highlighted some of the tech challenges grassroots-led enterprises face in Oxford. We wanted to find out more as well as broaden the project scope to include county-wide infrastructure and social action organisations.