This Sunday, 16th November, we try out a new format, an ‘open table.’ That is, there will a few pre-agreed speakers, but anyone else in the room — we’re looking at YOU — is welcome to ask for a seat at the table. Think of it as a round-table flavoured by the unconference spirit.
Our topic is the early Indian online communities. We are particularly interested in hearing about communities that took shape in the period between 15 August 1996 (when VSNL first launched a publicly available Internet service) and 2000, but earlier groups are very welcome, and a wee bit later is fine too. Let’s say no later than the early days of blogging.
We hope to discover many different kinds of communities and the diversity and optimism and the finding of tribes that they fostered. But we are also open to hearing the darker tales too.
The discussion will be steered by Udhay Shankar, who, besides being one of TGP’s founders, has been active on various internet communities since the 90s, and previously founded one of India’s oldest surviving listservs. Among the folx who have volunteered are Nadika Nadja, who got online in 1995 and found affirmation in LGBTQI+ communities and Madras groups, Swati Sani, poet, author, translator, and entrepreneur, Amitha Singh, writer, storyteller, marketer, self-described ruiner of workplaces since 1993, and possibly the first female webmaster in India, Frederick Noronha, an online community builder since 1995, mostly preferring old-fashioned email lists and long involved in India’s FOSS networks, Creative Commons and Wikipedia, Peter Griffin, who spent countless hours immersed in Geocities, chat and messengers, message boards, and a now-defunct writing community, all using his workplace internet connection, and helped persuade his then-employer to use online tools.
If you have stories about finding community in the early public internet in India, please write back to info@thegoaproject.com and thetgpsessions@gmail.com (you can also just raise your hand on Sunday).
The Goa Project Sessions 