The growing prevalence of national network shutdowns is leading our society to the age of the “splinternet”. Standing in its way are effective solutions of wireless and decentralized technologies.

SplinterCon is an international and interdisciplinary conference that focuses specifically on internet fragmentation and its consequences on contemporary societies and online liberties. The inaugural event was launched by eQualitie in Montreal, December 2023. Since them we’ve also hosted this event in Brussels and Berlin. These gatherings brought together hundreds of creative minds from communities encompassing network researchers, technology entrepreneurs, network engineers and software developers, user experience designers, media and internet freedom advocates, all in order to:

• Analyze the practices and impacts of network isolation and shutdowns;
• Evaluate existing and future technology solutions for communicating with and within sovereign networks;
• Invest in practical and user-oriented solutions for connectivity and content distribution across digital barriers.