Connectivity Community of Practice Launch!
On March 11, 2026, M-Lab and Giga formally launched the Connectivity Community of Practice (CCoP) and held the inaugural session with 51 global participants representing backgrounds from academia, industry, civil society and international NGOs. The event introduced the CoP’s initial focus areas and invited participants to help shape its first-year agenda through an interactive Community document.
Resources
🛝 Slides
🎥 Recording
📃 Community Doc
🔗 GitHub
🖊️ Join the CoP Group
The event began with presentations from Giga and Measurement Lab, introducing the organizations and their work. Maria Antonia Bravo, Technology Programme Manager, described various school connectivity contexts and how current tools and measurement methodologies fail to capture the data and insights needed to solve their real-world challenges, and how the CCoP could help resolve those gaps in measurement and application.
Melissa Newcomb, Director, Programs and Partnerships at Measurement Lab, provided an overview of what the CCoP’s objectives are and how it will be stewarded. Grounded in open data, open tools, and open collaboration, the CoP brings together researchers, engineers, implementers, policymakers, and advocates working to ensure that connectivity measurement is:
- Technically rigorous
- Globally comparable
- Practical for real-world connectivity contexts, including underserved regions
Pavlos Sermpezis, Director, Technical Lead at Measurement Lab, introduced the M-Lab platform and the initial research agenda for the CCoP. The four initial workstreams for the CCoP are:
- Improving measurement tools
- Characterization of facility-based connectivity
- Internet Quality Barometer for Education (“IQB - Edu”)
- New insights from existing measurement data
In addition, we invited CCoP members to BYOI (Bring Your Own Ideas)! Initial questions and areas of work participant mentioned included:
- Insights into usage of the Internet by students in addition to the connectivity
- Exploring the proximity of content delivery networks, IXPs and educational facilities
- Connectivity providers and infrastructure development
- Access to content, regulation and right to information
As the CCoP evolves we expect the areas of research and work to change to reflect the interests of the community.
Going forward, Measurement Lab and Giga will steward the CCoP for the first year with support from Superbloom Design. In the coming weeks, we will disseminate governance documents and invite CCoP members to formulate working groups, participate in research, share their findings and provide feedback. We already have 53 members in the CCoP Google group!
The Connectivity Community of Practice reflects a shared commitment to building durable, inclusive, and representative approaches to connectivity measurement — ensuring that data serves the communities it is intended to support.