Relaycorp

It was incredibly painful to record this episode, but it's finally out: Come in and listen to my journey attempting to test @AwalaApp in the real world. After facing significant funding challenges and setbacks with my initial plans, I made the difficult decision to extend Awala's scope to incorporate a VPN, initially targeting China. The episode explores how this strategic shift, whilst definitely not ideal, could ultimately help fund crucial improvements to Awala's network whilst providing immediate value to users in censored regions. I also share insights about leveraging AI to accelerate development and the challenges of building technology for unpredictable Internet blackouts. Links below!

Episode 3 of Inside @AwalaApp is out! Four years, around a dozen freelancers, and more than $750k in non-dilutive funding from the Open Technology Fund, Mozilla Corporation, and others. That's what it took to build the Awala network, despite significant challenges.

Episode 2 of the Inside Awala podcast came out last night! 🎉 Tune in to learn about the founding and funding of @RelaycorpHQ, the company behind @AwalaApp. I shared how I managed to secure funding to build Awala whilst all I had was a prototype and the documentation for how I'd go about building it. I also discuss my rationale for creating a for-profit company, as opposed to a charity. This episode should also give you a glimpse into how persistent (narrator: "stubborn") I can be, for better or for worse! Check out this excerpt, and listen to the full episode on your favourite podcast platform! Links below.

It took a little longer than expected, but the first episode of Inside Awala is finally out: How North Korea shaped Awala. In this episode, I share the story of how Awala started as a research project, and why I chose to use North Korea as a reference for the kind of censorship that the technology would have to circumvent in theory. What I'm sharing is the upshot of my research at Oxford, before founding Relaycorp and securing funding to build Awala. You can listen to it in the video attached, or wherever you get your podcasts (links below).

Announcing @ddos_report and Despacito: As we prepare for an eventual, gradual launch of @CheLetro, I've been more actively working on #DDOS mitigation, but I found that what we developers and operators need to know is scattered over marketing websites and research reports.

I'm so happy I could cry! After 5 years of designing and implementing an awful lot of infrastructure to make apps that work securely with and without the Internet, we're finally building the first end-user app that leverages this infrastructure! And here's a sneak peek.