Beam your photos from space with Outernet

If you could share one photo with the entire world, what would you pick?

That’s the question that Outernet has put to the Flickr Community, and the founders of Humanities Public Library are prepared to include a selection of photos in their collection to share with the more than 4.3 billion people who cannot connect to the Internet currently, and to another roughly 1 billion people who have their Internet connections censored or monitored.

Hubble Space Telescope and Earth Limb

Outernet broadcasts a data signal from satellites that is free to receive anywhere on Earth. While this is not an Internet connection, it is a free stream of critical information, including photography. What information is considered “critical?” You help decide.

To submit a photo for consideration in their collection, add it to the Library from Space group on Flickr. All submissions must be under a Creative Commons license. If you want to submit an All Rights Reserved photo to the group, you must own the rights to it and you will need to change the license or make a copy on Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

Outernet editathon screenshot

You can also join with Outernet and Creative Commons this weekend as they co-host the first edit-a-thon for Humanity’s Public Library on July 18-19, 2015. The edit-a-thon will be a collaboration with anyone around the world to decide what is included in this library. The edit-a-thon will take place at Mozilla Festival East Africa (MozFestEA) in Kampala, Uganda, as part of a weekend-long track that will be kicked off Saturday morning by Outernet and CC volunteers from Uganda and Kenya.

They have also created an Outernet group for discussions about the edit-a-thon and as a workspace for photos that might be considered for their broadcast. If you have any questions for Outernet about what kinds of photos might be selected, this is a great place to ask.

Anyone on Earth is encouraged to participate and build this library. For more information, go to the Outernet Edit-a-thon page and sign up. Be sure to join their Flickr groups and add your best Creative Commons licensed photo for consideration to be added to their library.