So welcome, everyone.

I'm going to start. Actually, the topic is my question. I don't have an answer, so I don't want to create expectation for my talk. But I want to talk a little bit about myself before.

So I was thinking about do some activities, but I think I'm going through because I have three minutes, so I'm confused about what I'm going to go.

So I'm going to talk about myself. And before, I have to talk about my ancestors. This is my grandma. She passed away last year, but we used to live together. And this is acai, or acai, I don't know if you know. But it's the main dish in Para, in Berlin.

And she was, for 92 years, she was telling us, our family, how proud she was with our ancestors that were from Europe, Portuguese, Spanish.

And in the afternoon, when she was 92, she became 92 years old, she told me that she had a grandmother that was indigenous. So at that point, I realized that I had blood from Brazil, the real Brazil,

and indigenous was from a tribe called Puris. And she said that she lived in the same region for all her, like for 20 years, and then she moved to Rio, to the capital, because she was looking for a better job. So, but she was ashamed to talk about her grandmother.

And this is a draw made from three German people, and I thought it was interesting to bring. And it's the tribe, they were drawing the images that they saw from the Puris, the tribe that my great-grandmother was from. So it seems that this guy was a prince of Villeneuve.

This is my other grandma, her name is Yuda. She passed away, but all the time, she was in the Amazon region, she was always like, I wanna go to Igarape. And Igarape is this piece of pound, like where we have water, we do the cleanings here,

we do the dishes, and so she's naked, but that's how she loved to be. And she had 17 babies, seven of them passed away.

And she said that for each baby, there was a reason for the baby to die, and it was related to the spirits of the forest. So she believed in the god of the mother, of the water. For each baby, she had an explanation,

and she believed into the spirits and the protection of the forest. But when she was 40 years old, she decided to go to the capital because in the forest, she didn't have education to give to her kids. So she packed, these are my hands and ankle.

My father is not in this picture because he was in my grandma's belly, and they were getting ready to travel. So they took a ship from Belém to Rio, one month by boat, and they had 10 kids with them,

two dogs, some chickens, one pig, and a parrot. And they went to Rio, to the capital, looking for development and education. And my grandma passed, she said there was the five, most, the years that she was depressed, the first years,

because she was wild, people ignored her, she didn't have friends. So she said that for five years, she was really depressed. So you can see that for my life, like my both families, they met in Rio,

and that was the place where I was born. And in my whole life, I thought that finding a good job, way of getting money, was a good way of life. And I got used to see favela, slums, and also wealthy. So inequality for me was something common. We can see favelas in every neighborhood in Rio.

But in 2011, I had a deep experience when I traveled to Santarém, and I met a collective that worked with open source technology called Poraqué. And I had two friends that were convincing me,

Deborah, you have to quit your job. What are you doing? Go do something for the world. And then in 2012, I decided to quit my job. But before that, I was organizing some TED Talks. And this was in Belém, that she's TEDx Verupezo.

And I organized TEDx Rio Plus 20 also, TEDx Charim Botánico. And for me, TED was too much an aspiration, and talks, it's so nice. But there was no hands-on, like I was missing. What are we doing after the talk?

Nothing, so. In 2012, I met this summit called IDDS, International Development Design Summit, that is organized by MIT. The lab is called The Lab. So I was fascinated, whoa.

So I spent, I quit my job, and I went to this place, I spent four weeks learning about design process, and putting my hands on and thinking about solutions. In this case, we built a ecological sewage system based on permaculture principles in Favela, in São Paulo.

And after that, I said, okay, I'm going to MIT, I have to go to this lab. So I moved to Boston, I did couchsurfing for four months, then I was, I did not have money, but I had friends, so I was going to friends' house, and people were hosting me, I was in some couch.

Anyway, so I, no, it's funny, because couchsurfing found a family that hosted me for four months without knowing me. Like, they were just, they gave me the second, the third floor of their house to live, it was amazing. And so I start to organize summits with them.

I was a volunteer in learning a lot, so I'm gonna pass, just so you know where I've been to. I went to Tanzania in 2013, Uganda near South Sudan, refugee camp called Adumani, and we did a cook stove made of clay

to not use too much wood, because they do not have wood in that region. I went to India in 2015, and between all these summits that I was organizing, I also was doing some immersions in collectives,

like I was, I want to learn a lot. So I did some travels with the hacker buzz that was, that we have people here from hacker buzz, too. Nuveen, Rio de Janeiro, that is the cool lab that you just saw, one of the creators is Bruno Viana,

he was from Nuveen. I helped with this organization, Rainforest Connection, in an indigenous tribe called Tembe, in Para. And I start traveling, like, okay, I'm from Para, too, and what is Para about?

So I traveled to some islands in the Amazon region. I went to Santare again, and I learned about bioconstruction. We built a church, because that's what the community would like to have, so. And at some point I saw myself, people invited me,

MIT inviting me to bring students to the Amazon. We're gonna think about the technology and then we go and implement. And I was not so comfortable about that, because I'd like to do something together or in the community, not bringing people from outside and to Brazil.

So I decide to go back to Belém. Like, I was out of money, I was like, what am I doing, where should I go? I went to my parents' house. And I like this picture, because I would like to show you that Belém is a city in the middle of the Amazon region,

but we have the river as a wall. The Belém, they grow, grow, grow, and then stopped. And it doesn't go there, because, I do not know why, but people, they just go, they consider the people that live there in the islands as wild,

and it's the same things that I remember my grandma's talking to me. So after that part, it's just wild people, non-developed community. And this is also Belém, the buildings, big buildings. And then I applied to organize an IDDS,

and I called IDDS Amazon, and that's the logo. It was last year, and I decided to find a community that was very close to Belém. Like, I didn't want to be traveling so much, so I found one, I visited some fairs,

and I found a guy, he was so kind, and he took me to his community. So it's from Belém, 45, 50 minutes by boat. And what they do, they climb trees to sell acai. This is Leandro's feet, this is Leandro,

he's the president of the Association of Organic Producers. They plant herbs, they have more than 100 types of herbs, and this is a culture in Belém, where you take bath with herbs, it's good to give you luck.

So they have these baths, they produce cassava, this was something that my grandma used to make also, cassava flower, and this is the most impressive circular economy that I know, like nothing's a waste. They use the plants, everything to produce something.

So this is the main area, it's in between the houses. This is the liquid that comes from the cassava to make tucupi, you can have a dish called tacaca. This is the bijou, it's made of cassava too.

And this is the, they have this big round thing, very hot, and this is something that I wanna mention. These are another community from Marajó Island, and these guys, they're really young. It was the opposite, people from Belém moved to the forest so they didn't have any culture,

like the traditional culture, they didn't have, so the youngs, they decide to produce cassava without knowing. So this is the traditional way of making tucupi, where you put, this is chipichí, the name of this, it's very indigenous, you put the cassava,

you squeeze, no, but you put some heavy things, and the liquid that comes out is a tucupi, so you can drink. And the guys, they didn't know how to make chipichí, so they made a press, so they were showing me, oh look, but the tucupi is very toxic,

so it's not good for the fish, so they were doing things without knowing, but it was impressive anyway. This guy I met in a really beautiful place, it's a paradise, and he was the only one that makes chipichí, he was making chipichí here.

Chipichí is that thing that I showed you here. So in this community that I'm working with, they produce herbs to big companies, they got a lot of money to build buildings, they have lab, computer labs,

they have big TVs and they have a surveillance there, they have cages and these bars, and when I talked to them and I asked, why do you have, is it dangerous to be here, they said, don't you see on TV? And okay, but something happened here,

they said, no, no, but TV showing, you can see everyday violence on TV. So the TV is the big influence of the community, and I found this picture, and I'd like to have the flags of Germany, and so TV is, so this is a, I don't have the picture,

but one day I was watching TV in this house, with this family, and it was the commercial between the soap opera, and the woman said, look, the shampoo commercial, can you see what we have on the wall? There was all the empty packages of shampoos with all the colors. They buy the shampoo not because of the hair,

they buy because of the color, so they just have the collection of packages to decorate the house, so they like decorating the house with packages and anything that they see on TV and they can buy. And at the same time, all this consumerism

that they see on TVs, they do not have where to put, so if they do not use it as a decoration, they have to throw it anywhere, so they make holes, sometimes they cover, sometimes they put fire. So internet, and then I started to talk to them,

and it was hard to have communication, like I need documents, I need things, how can we talk? And every time I had to go one hour by boat to get documents or get information, so I decided why not write a project to bring internet to the region? So I wrote with the association, ITA and WEFPR,

we got some funding, and we decided to connect the community to the internet, and this is the back hole, this is the university, so they gave us, they gave them internet for two years,

this is from the WEFPR, the antenna, that is pointing to this tower, this tower was abundant, so no one was using, so we went there, we decided to climb, installed the antenna to have the reception,

and to point to the association, so we have internet now in the school, in the health center, and in the association. And for this summit that I organized, IDDS last year, I had this group of people, the two behind,

they were from the community, so two young people, this guy from, these two from ITA, this is from the hacker bus that I said, and this girl is from MIT, so they together created prototypes, and they plan how can it be sustainable, all the projects,

and they talked to the community, what to do in two years and five years, they map all the houses, they are interested in having internet, so the plan is to have a community provider, so we use the internet and be a way of getting money

for the association and contribute to the people that live there. So we built a big tower also, this is the big tower, we had to put it down too, because it was getting too dangerous, because it was close to this energy

that is passing there. And at the end, after the summit, they sent me a picture, like we were planning, how can we do the tower, and then they sent me that, but we have the tower, look, they sent the picture with the tower that they built with e-metal,

so they did by themselves. So the idea was to, and then I have here some, the idea is to not only have a community provider

and get money, it's how can this internet, how can contribute? I think about myself, I think about my grandparents, how it would work, would they stay in the forest, would they decide to give up instead of going to Rio, would they stay in the forest if they had internet and access to media or,

so I don't have the answer, and I have the question, how internet can bridge this traditional and contemporary knowledge in the Amazon. And I think, I believe that media production is a way of getting this information

and putting it online and having people to know what's happening. They can exchange knowledge between them if they have internet and they can know. And at the same time, I am afraid that people can get addicted to internet the same way we are.

So how can we, is it possible to make something? So I have less than 10 minutes now to finish, but I'd like us to discuss, like if you'd like to have time to discuss with someone beside you or if you have questions,

and then we can talk, maybe solutions. So yes, we have the person with the lovely yellow t-shirt. We'll bring a microphone to you if you have a question. Please remember to keep your questions brief and concise and try to ask a question and not comment. And over there is the first question.

Hi, thank you. I would like to know, first of all, how long has the internet been working there? And if you have had any feedback of the population of how they have perceived and what has happened until today. And also I would like to know how you come up with the idea that they need this internet.

Was it something that came from them that you, then it was something that they constructed? Was it something participative that the necessity come from them? Yeah, it's been working for almost one year. And how is it working?

There are some arguments because everyone wants the password of the wifi. So sometimes they have to be changing. And they are, it's a problem. It's not easy because we do not have a lot of internet. The access should be,

we have to change the password time to time. The need is, every time I was talking to them, like even to connect, to ask for help, like if something happened, they had to find where can I use a telephone. Like the telephone was a problem.

Like internet would give them access to talk and communicate easily. For me it was important because we could think about projects. And I was just like was more them talking about it. They have a lab, a computer lab, but they didn't have,

for them having computers doesn't matter. What they need is internet. Why can't I, I'm gonna turn off the computer without internet? They have these thoughts and like even talking and showing that oh you can use computer, but they do not, they are, some of them are illiterate. So for them it's like watching videos,

it's communicating, sending, calling. So what else you asked, sorry. Yeah, if it was a participatory process that then it says it can run from them. It was more related to the association. I couldn't go to the whole community. They are 300 people. It was focused on the association of organic producers.

They are 30 families. Thank you for this question and thank you for the answer. We have time for maybe two short questions or one a bit longer question. And I think you pointed up first. So the lady in the blue.

I'm just wondering, I'm hearing more and more of these projects connecting indigenous cultures with technologies. Is there a platform that is like a network where projects can learn from other projects or is it still very island populated? Like you have different projects, but do they connect somehow?

You mean network in the region? I mean globally. So you know, it's, yeah, I'm so for it. Yeah, but they, yeah. But I mean, does anything exist like that already? Have you heard of anything or is that not happening? The geek, it's a way of gathering.

It's a global international net. No, global, global innovation gathering. And I think it's a good way. IDIN is another one that is funded by USAID. But also my idea that I'm doing a masters now

and I would like to have a network where they can communicate, they can get together because the river, as I said, is a wall. They need money to get the boat to go to a meeting and sometimes they do not have money. So how can we have this as something that is supported by the government? So they can talk and exchange knowledge.

We have time for one last question. Please, over there. Please, send the microphone. Hey, thanks for your talk. You said that they have internet for two years? One year. Okay, and what happens after?

Are there any plans? Yeah, the idea is that in two years, if they have this community provider running, they will be getting money from the community. At some point, if they have all the network working, the university will close down and then they can contract like another,

they can talk to and negotiate. Okay, I have a network, it's ready and we can pay you this amount. Because for the big companies, they don't want to go to the Amazon. It's too difficult. So they prefer the tower. They build the tower and then they just give up. They prefer not sending people there to build.

Okay, please, one last question over there. It's a very simple question. I just would like to know what changed for them. I mean, they can connect to the internet. So what had changed in their real life? Did they move away?

Did they like realize that they are in heaven or do they have any other forms of communication? Do people visit them now that they're connected? Yeah, yeah, it's about communicating to knowing about what the government is offering. Sometimes it's very easy. Okay, go to the bank line.

Like sometimes just to go to the bank, like they have to take the boat and go. So now the internet for them, it's not so easy. They still do not read emails. I have to send WhatsApp to say you have an email because, but it's okay. And then it's just, but there is a woman that is telling me that on Facebook,

now she can, all her family is evangelical. They do not use lipsticks. They cannot use jewelry. And she's saying that on Facebook, she can show. She's showing how she is. So for her, Facebook now is a way, a tool of showing things that in real life,

she avoid to not have problems. So thanks a lot for these amazing insights into your life and work.