The Waag Society in Sarai-CSDS's long term partner in Amsterdam. www.waag.org

The Waag Society is the name of what started in 1994 as 'Society for old en new Media - de Waag'. The Society's mission was to make new media available for groups of people that have little access to computers and internet, thus increasing their quality of living. Today, Waag Society has grown into an institution that is active in the fields of networked art, healthcare, education and internet related issues like bandwidth and copyright.

Sarai has collaborated with the Waag Society on a number of events, exchanges and publications based on common concerns. In particular, both Sarai and Waag Society are concerned with the following issues:

          •        Importance of the public domain;

          •        Access to media tools and innovation in media practices;

          •        Interdisciplinary research (between research and practice, and across disciplines);

          •        Setting up contexts for creativity and exploration of expressive means.

 Starting in 2004 and building on these experiences and principles the Sarai - Waag Exchange has been transformed into an Exchange Platform that aims to integrate more partners, especiallly in the global south, into our discussions practices and conversations. For more details about the exchange see <http://www.waag.org/project/exchange> and <http://sarai.waag.org>

Sarai CSDS and the Waag Society, together wiith t0/Netbase also constituted a collaborative Indo-European network titled 'Towards a Culture of Open Networks' <http://www.opencultures.net/>