info_tfgrid/collections/tfgrid3/who_are_we.md

# About Us

## People

We are a group of passionate people who want to build a new foundational layer for a better working internet, more like how the Internet was originally intended to be.

The project was started by some Internet & Cloud veterans who now want to handover to a much more decentralized environment.

More than 1000 farmers made this project possible and we are supper grateful for all their support.

## The Project's Mission

ThreeFold Grid (TFGrid) is a foundational layer which can be used by any web2/3 project. It empowers individuals requiring cloud resources such as network, GPU, CPU, and storage to leverage its capabilities for their projects. We help others to create any web2 or web3 solution on our grid. 

## The Project's Purpose

The purpose is to deliver a new infrastructure layer to build a new internet on top of. This layer is sovereign, more scalable, peer-to-peer and co-owned. The project delivers network, compute and storage to anyone who needs it for their own usecases.
[See the high level tech description.](tech:key_innovations.md)

## Who Benefits The Most From The TFGrid's Capabilities?

- CI/CD developers
- Countries: to deploy their own internet 
- The DePIN movement
- Social Media Apps

## The Project’s Key Achievements To Date

- The ThreeFold Grid: connected across ±60 countries by independent people and organizations called ThreeFold farmers, live and usable in its third generation technology
- Partnerships with the governments of Tanzania, to deploy physical infrastructure and introducing coding academies and innovation hubs across the country, and Zanzibar, to deploy physical infrastructure locally and introduce a digital free zone
- An extensive community of 1000+ farmers and several thousand others – token holders, grid users, and supporters / advocates of the project
- Our strategic partnerships with key DePIN players: more will be announced soon.


## Values

- Our core [values](values:planet_people_first) are simple and strong
- We are fundamentally a tech platform and are therefore not biased
- The project's intent is to clearly explain our tech's capabilities and let everyone decide for themselves what to do with it

## Messaging

- The project believes in an internet where everyone can communicate freely and own their own data
- The project wants to help others to become truly decentralized (which is not the case with the current Internet)
- The project wants to help countries to have their own sovereign Internet
- The project wants to help data center providers to build improved data centers


## Participants

### Farmers

Farmers connect computers to our new internet to provide GPU, Storage and Compute capacity and make it available over Mycelium to all participants.

### Network Bridgers

- Make a bridge between the old and new internet 
- Provide bandwidth to the TFGrid 

### Guardians

- Protect the network
- Provide governance
- Keep all relevant services up and running to allow the TFGrid to function

### Farming Pools (new for a TBD version)

- Help farmers to be more effective
- Training & Support
- Improve uptime and provide authenticity


### TF Coop

- Our governance layer (DAO tooling can be extended)
- Everyone is part of the Cooperative
- The Coop directors will build this organization to streamline our expansion
- Gives everyone a voice and environment to operate from 

### TFNode Suppliers

- Build & Sell TFNodes to our participants.
- Minimal service/support needs to be delivered

### Service / Solution Providers

- They create & provide solutions and/or services on top of TFGrid
- Customers of these solutions pay in INCA (providing value to our mutual credit currency)
- Each solution has T&C
- Each solution needs to be supported
  
### Technology Providers

- Create opensource technology which can be used in the TFGrid
- Grants might be available to reward Technology Providers
- TF9 (previously TFTech) is example of a Technology Provider

### DePIN Partners

- Our team is in active discussions in search of a party (company, project, community) who will support our launch into the DePIN world 
- This party (or parties) will:
    - Actively promote our project in the DePIN space. 
    - Explain our tokens and integrate with other currencies
    - Integrate with the rest of the DePIN ecosystem
    - Organize community growth
    - Organize grants for the rest of the community
    - Grow value for the whole ecosystem and let it "FLOW"