A network of IT cooperatives

Actors of the Social Economy need IT Tools to realize their missions. From share-management in an energy cooperative over member shift systems in cooperative supermarkets to management tools for shared housing initiatives. Luckily, a variety of IT cooperatives exists that build these tools.

Inspired by the ICA principles, we have joined forces as IT cooperatives to mutualize resources, share knowledge and build better tools together. With a bigger network we will also be able to work on more complex projects. In all these ways, we hope to empower the actors we are supporting, and help make a change towards a more sustainable world.

Come build IT Tools for the Social Economy with us!

History

This idea for this project began when Barcelona-based Coopdevs took part in the IT & Social Economy Open Space Event organized by Brussels-based Coop IT Easy on 4 & 5 February 2019. After learning about the various projects they were working on, the idea grew to share tools among clients and collaborate on each other’s projects. This was intensified one year later, at a Food Hackathon where developers dove into the code together, and where the principles for an inter-cooperation were drafted.

Main actors

Coop IT Easy and Coopdevs are workers cooperatives that offer IT services for actors of the Social Economy. They mostly work with Odoo ERP. They are currently the main promoters of this intercooperation effort, and are hoping to welcome many other actors.

We’ve currently established links with a number of organizations:

Som Mobilitat is providing e-car sharing services as part of The Mobility Factory.
Grap or ‘Groupement Régional Alimentaire de Proximité’ is a cooperative working around food provisioning in Lyon, and has a dedicated developper team.
Le Nid is a cooperative supermarket in Geneva, with some voluntary developers.
Mycéliandre in Besançon, France is providing IT support for various projects.
… Your team or project here?

Our Goals

Develop & maintain a common base of IT Tools for the main branches of the Social Economy (currently mainly Odoo modules).
Maintain documentation for the tools we build, making it as easy as possible for others to install and use our tools.
Promote Open Source tools and support their community.
Improve Cooperation movement through IT. We believe cooperation can improve our society
- through worker emancipation in a democratic organisation,
- through the social and/or environmental missions of our cooperatives.

In practice

We defined a strategy, set goals and tasks and distributed the work - ranging from improving our tools to facilitating the intercooperation. We meet once a month to discuss the progress made. Each member dedicates time to work on the intercooperation projects.

In the future we hope to have a common budget for bigger tasks, and explore mutualization of costs between the various actors and ourselves.

Main projects

The main projets we’re currently working on are

Cooperative Share Management through Easy My Coop

Cooperative Supermarket Management through Obeesdoo

Obeesdoo was initially developed for the BEEScoop supermarket.

We are considering to add other tools we’ve been building, in the areas such as short circuit distribution logistics and website sale, cooperative housing, …

Shared function documentation

We’re working to creat a shared platform for functional documentation on the tools we develop. It’s currently under construction here.

Road map & Highlight Topics for 2021

Set up an intercooperation group: strategy, website, documentation system, …
Move towards a joint solution for Scale and Point of Sale
Improve our Cooperative Share Management tool Easy My Coop:
- Improve the user work-flow
- Improve Online payment and SEPA payment (directly instead of by bank transfer)
- Generalize cooperative supermarket modules
- Make it Spain-compatible