In June 2025, I gave the keynote “Community-led Digital Sovereignty: Insights and Lessons from an Indigenous Initiative in Remote Canada” at the International Digital Security Forum (IDSF) in Vienna. Since the recently published report focused mainly on the panel discussions, I wanted to briefly share some of the keynote’s central themes here as well.
My keynote drew on more than eight years of ethnographic fieldwork with the Indigenous-owned network organization KO-KNET in Northwestern Ontario, Canada (e.g. Budka 2015).
After a 26-hour train journey from Toronto, I arrived in Sioux Lookout, a small town serving remote First Nations communities across Northwestern Ontario. On my first evening there, KO-KNET manager Brian Beaton drove me to the edge of town and pointed toward a large satellite dish. “This is how the most remote communities stay connected,” he told me.
At the time, I thought we were talking about internet access. Over the years, I realized we were also talking about governance, relationships, and the right of communities to shape their own digital futures.
Digital sovereignty is about more than connectivity
A central argument of the keynote was that digital sovereignty is not simply about being connected. It is about who controls infrastructure, services, and data.
Many Indigenous communities in Northwestern Ontario had long been treated as “high-cost serving areas”, places considered economically unprofitable to connect. KO-KNET emerged as a response to this history. Rather than waiting for governments or telecom companies, the organization began building and governing its own networks and services.
Infrastructure is always social and relational
One thing that became increasingly clear during my fieldwork was that infrastructure is never purely technical. KO-KNET’s networks depended not only on cables and satellites, but also on trust, local expertise, and long-term community involvement.
This was especially visible in the community E-Centres, which functioned not simply as internet access points, but as social and cultural spaces where people learned digital skills, shared music and photos, and supported one another online and offline.
Community-owned platforms create different digital cultures
One of the most fascinating parts of this history was MyKnet.org, a First Nations-owned social networking and homepage platform that became hugely popular across the region in the early 2000s.
Young people learned HTML, customized their pages, shared music, and built online identities long before commercial social media platforms became dominant in these communities. What made MyKnet.org remarkable was not only that it was locally built, but that it operated according to different values: users were not treated as products, and governance remained community-based.
Community ownership changes how technology works
One lesson that emerged repeatedly during my research was that infrastructure works differently when communities have a meaningful role in shaping and maintaining it themselves. Ownership fosters accountability, local governance builds trust, and culturally grounded systems are often more sustainable over time.
KO-KNET demonstrates that communities can successfully govern complex digital systems while remaining connected to broader national and global networks.
These questions matter far beyond Northern Canada
Although the keynote focused on Northwestern Ontario, the broader questions extend well beyond this region. Debates about AI, platform governance, digital sovereignty, and technological dependence are increasingly global ones.
Community-led infrastructures like KO-KNET remind us that more plural forms of technological development are both possible and necessary.
Budka, P. (2025). Community-led digital sovereignty: Insights and lessons from an Indigenous initiative in remote Canada. Keynote at International Digital Security Forum Vienna: Balancing Sovereignty and Solidarity in the Digital Age, Vienna, Austria: MuseumsQuartier, 4-6 June.