Build Our Web 25 History

Grantee Project

OWPSEE and Zenskaposla are using the Web We Want grant to build a user-generated history of 25 years of the Web in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Will highlight milestones in the country’s history, including the 1989 fall of communism and the end/breaking up of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia; the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and the long post-conflict recovery period; the first Web “revolution” in 2008, the 2013 #JMBG online protest, and the 2014 “Bosnian Spring.” The timeline with these milestones will be launched and publicly distributed, with an open call for people submit stories related to any of these key time periods. For the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose recent history has been plagued by conflict and ethnic struggles, the Web constituted a truly unique breakthrough—the first territory without a visa requirement.

The peoples’ history will visualised through an interactive timeline which will include text and images, together with short individual digital stories, audio/video interviews with people present during key moments in the country’s Web history, and a collective participatory video. The history timeline will include the development of institutions, legislation, investments, big telecoms, small ISPs, formal civil society organisations, and informal initiatives surrounding the Web. The most significant stories will be selected and the storytellers will be invited to participate and develop their story during a storytelling workshop in Sarajevo. Meanwhile, a small team of net activists will conduct research and interviews, and will help to create and run a participatory collective video process. This team will be chosen among participants of the “Build our Web25 History” project, with the support of OWSPEE and Zenskaposla, and following a training on video production, will collaborate to create this 11 to 15-minute long collective video. The video and supporting materials will be available for download, and people will be encouraged to organise presentations in their towns, and to send feedback and updates to further enrich the timeline.