The Awala Way

This document describes the guiding principles of Awala since its conception, which will help explain the rationale for many design decisions and future direction of the project, from both technical and non-technical perspectives.

Background

Awala’s ultimate goal is to become the computer network on which humankind can truly rely. In concrete terms, that means providing all human beings with uncensored and timely communication anywhere in the universe – except when doing so impairs the fundamental rights of others.

Realising this moonshot will require a great deal of effort, funding, collaboration with a wide variety of stakeholders and sustained discipline. It is therefore crucial to lay out the general approach to realise the full potential of the technology, whilst minimising undesired consequences.

Principles

The principles below have been employed since the early conceptualisation of the technology, although most of them were initially tacit and then gradually elicited.

  1. Wars are won by picking the right battles. We are surrounded by problems, but resources are always limited and each desideratum involves a series of compromises (including some which we won’t anticipate), so we must often say “no” to things we wish we could do. For example, we will:

    • Collaborate with parties with whom we share a goal but not necessarily other goals.
    • Strive to deliver solutions that are just barely good enough.

    Having said this, pragmatism and focus are not licences for unethical action or inaction.

  2. Effective solutions are driven by real problems. We technologists are particularly susceptible to get carried away by the potential of a new technology, but that often leads to projects whose impact doesn’t match their hype because the problem was made-up or an afterthought.

  3. Necessity and convenience drive large-scale changes; ideology alone doesn’t. The only way to reach mass adoption is to give people and organisations a convenient solution to their problems, not an ideological reason to use a solution.

    If, for example, we have to bring up our commitments to open source or decentralisation to win over users, that’d be a sign that we’re failing to deliver convenient solutions to real problems.

  4. Policy is the underrated sidekick of technology. Some problems can’t be solved with purely technical solutions, and some technical solutions could be made simpler and easier to use when combined with the right legal/contractual requirements.
  5. Privacy, security and usability are equally important, but usability has veto power. When forced to choose, we’ll prioritise non-technical people over tech-savvy people.
  6. Financial incentives facilitate or accelerate mass adoption, so we must actively foster an open market where new and existing participants can thrive ethically.
  7. Empowering all humankind is our north star, and economic inequality threatens it.
  8. No idea is too ambitious as long as there is a credible plan to realise it in small steps.
  9. Experimentation beats consensus in the early days, but it gradually reverses as adoption grows.