Tech coops list

🎉 To celebrate 1k stars on GitHub this list now has a website version on tech-coops.xyz

A list of tech coops and resources concerning tech coops and worker owned cooperatives in general.

Contributions to this list are very welcome. Just clone this repo, edit this file (README.md) or edit it directly (open it and click on the pencil icon on the upper right) and create a pull request. Please read CONTRIBUTING.md before creating a pull request.

What are worker-owned tech cooperatives?

A very general definition:

Worker-owned cooperatives are business enterprises that are owned and governed by their employees. All worker cooperatives have two common characteristics: 1) member-owners invest in and own the business together, and share the enterprise’s profits, and 2) decision-making is democratic, with each member having one vote.

– community-wealth.org

Tech cooperatives are worker-owned cooperatives that operate in the information technology industry. This list focuses on tech coops that are providing software development and consulting services.

Tech cooperatives could be a solution if you feel alienated by big software corporations and startup culture or you feel alone and in search of solidarity as a freelancer.

Table of Contents

1. Coops
   1. North America
   2. South America
   3. Asia
   4. Europe
   5. Oceania
   6. Worldwide
2. Networks of coops
3. Resources
   1. Information on tech coops and coops in general
   2. Talks
   3. Mailinglists
   4. Chat rooms
   5. Tools
4. Products created by tech coops
5. Jobs and contracts
6. References to this list

Coops

North America

South America

Asia

Europe

Oceania

Decentralised / Worldwide

Historical / defunct coops

Other lists

• Awesome Tech Cooperatives - A collection of awesome cooperative tech companies and projects

Networks of coops

• CoTech - Network of tech coops in the UK.
  • CoTech Wiki
  • CoTech Forum - active tech cooperatives forum from CoTech
• FACT[TIC] - Federation of tech worker-cooperatives in Argentina.
• Libre Entreprise - Network of free software tech coops in France.
• Tech Co-op Network - North American Technology Worker Cooperatives.

Meetups

• Austin Software Co-operatives

Resources

Information on tech coops and coops in general

Handbooks / Guides

• A Technology Freelancer's Guide to Starting a Worker Cooperative, 2009
• A Document To Help You Start A Tech Cooperative - By Feel Train.
  • Discussion on Hacker News
• Crisp DNA - Handbook for Crisp, a Swedish network of consultants.
• The Loomio Co-op Handbook
  • Discussion on Hacker News.
• Enspiral Handbook - More information about the Enspiral network.
• Root Systems Handbook - Defunct livelihood pod within Enspiral Network.

Books

• Patterns for Decentralised Organising by Richard D. Bartlett - Practical guidance for teams, organisations and networks to manage without hierarchy.
• Ours to Hack and to Own: The Rise of Platform Cooperativism, a New Vision for the Future of Work and a Fairer Internet By Trebor Scholz and Nathan Schneider

Articles

• Can Coops Revolutionize the Tech Industry?
• Co-op of digital co-ops – arise, er, Megazord?
• The Argument For Worker-Owned Tech Collectives (Fastcompany)
• The Case for Technology Worker Coops from a Former Freelancer
• Post-Capitalist Solutions: How Worker-Owned Tech Co-ops Are Boosting the Solidarity Economy (occupy.com)
• Incorporating Notes: On Cooperatives, Nonprofits, and Better Accountability by the Collective for Liberation, Ecology, and Technology
• Tales from a digital cooperative and friends that are evolving human collaboration (by Camplight)
• Tech co-operatives are leaving the startup rat race behind

Financing / Salaries

• A new financial model for consulting - How we’re making our salaries fair and transparent
  • Financial Agreement of Root Systems
• Coopensation - Worker-Owned Incentive System.
• How a Worker-Owned Tech Startup Found Investors—and Kept Its Values
• "Loomio Points" - A system to acknowledge the work people did for free to get the project off the ground.
• "How to Co-op: Salaries & Reviews" - Overview of how reviews happen and how salaries are decided at nilenso, a worker-owned IT co-operative.

Legal

• How to incorporate a corporate cooperative in India - By nilenso.

Conflict

• Come Hell or High Water. A Handbook on Collective Process Gone Awry

Other links

• Ask HN: Examples of tech worker cooperatives? - Interesting discussion with lots of links.
• /r/cooperatives - Subreddit about cooperatives.

Videos / Talks

• Applying the Advice Process to a Software Service Co-op
• Cooperative Codes
• Ela Kagel on Platform Co-ops in Berlin
• Grow Your Own Economy in a Company, Don’t wait for the system out there to change — make your own rules and live in the economy you want, right now.
• Two Years Wiser, The Nilenso Experiment - Steven Deobald

Mailinglists / Forums

• tech-coop listserv - Main mailinglist about tech coops. Check out the archive for interesting threads in the past.
• Cooperative Technologists Community - CoTech (UK) community forum.

Chat rooms

• #cooptech:autonomic.zone (Matrix chat for CoTech)

Tools

• Cobudget - Crowdsource and fund projects within an organization. Developed and used by Enspiral.
• Loomio - Online decision-making

Software/Products created by tech coops

• API Platform - REST and GraphQL framework on top of Symfony and React.
• Canaille - Simple account manager and an OpenID Connect provider based upon a LDAP database.
• Cobuy - Group wholesale purchases as a consumer co-op (by Root Systems).
• CoopHub - Git repos from cooperatives around the world!
• Up & Go - Cooperative Home Cleaning Services (by CoLab).
• Moodlight - Emotional intelligence for teams (by Camplight)
• Assista - Effortless time tracking for Trello (by Camplight).
• CoopCycle - A federation of bike delivery co-ops with an open-source logistics platform.

Jobs and contracts

• Tech coops growing - Tech coops forming or looking for new members.
• CoTech Jobs - Jobs category on the CoTech Network (UK) community forums.

References to this list

• Discussion on Hacker News, posted on 2022-05-21
• D’Ignazio, C., & Klein, L. (2020). Conclusion: Now Let’s Multiply. In Data Feminism. https://data-feminism.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/a1ao95xs

License

This work and all contributions to it are released into the public domain under the terms of the CC0 1.0.