[PDGI Blog] Defining and Differentiating Peoples’ Digital Goods and Infrastructure

The Pranava Institute is part of a larger consortium of organisations building People’s Digital Goods and Infrastructure (PDGI), , an emerging paradigm for building and governing people-led, community-centric digital goods and infrastructures.

First PDGI Workshop on 'Discovery- Concepts, Principles and Stakeholders'

As part of the ongoing work of the People's Digital Goods and Infrastructure (PDGI) collective, we brought together a small group of stakeholders to actively brainstorm and co-develop ideas to shape the PDGI principles. The participants engaged in hands-on, collective exercises and creative dialogue to:

● Identify key concepts, principles and ideals that make PDGI a new paradigm towards building and governing people-led, community-centric, digital goods and

infrastructures.

● Collectively surface and creatively dialogue with diverse and diverging perspectives around PDGI.

● Map key stakeholders, ecosystem players and institutions, their roles in the PDGI

paradigm and strategies to engage with them.

● Lay the foundation for the PDGI principles, and future artefacts such as the PDGI

manifesto.

Through the first PDGI workshop we explored what should and should not underpin PDGI, how PDGI distinguishes itself from adjacent paradigms and should PDGI be positioned in relation to the state, the market, communities and emerging technologies.

Read this blog to explore insights from the first PDGI workshop: https://pdgi.org/blog/defining-and-differentiating-peoples-digital-goods-and-infrastructure/

About People’s Digital Goods and Infrastructure (PDGI)

PDGI is a collective effort to develop an evidence-based, forward-looking framework of principles, standards, rights, obligations and practices covering the entire technology lifecycle from conception and design to deployment and governance. Digital infrastructure increasingly mediates interactions between people, organisations and the state. Yet, even where this infrastructure relies on Free and Open Source Software, it is often governed by select public and private entities in ways that remain inaccessible and unaccountable to the people affected by it. Generative AI has lowered technical barriers, enabling communities to build technology solutions tailored to their own needs, rather than depending entirely on governments, vendors or Big Tech. At the same time, AI-generated software can increase opacity, security risks, dependency and the concentration of power.

PDGI asks how technology can be grounded in peoples’ collective identities, rights, agency and lived realities. The initiative explores questions of rights and justice, FOSS and open commons, decentralisation, local stewardship, participatory governance, transparency, accountability, social and planetary limits, and accessible non-digital alternatives for critical services.

Read this blog to explore insights from the first PDGI workshop: https://pdgi.org/blog/defining-and-differentiating-peoples-digital-goods-and-infrastructure/