ZeroComms

Keeps your crisis plans, maps, procedures and contacts available on site, even when internet, cloud or power fail. Think of it as an emergency generator, but for information.

The problem

Crisis organisations have become deeply dependent on a handful of central systems and commercial platforms. When those fail, more goes down than you'd think.

The dependency chain in a crisis Local locations Fire station First response Policy team Coordination Dispatch Control room Central systems Cloud, SaaS SharePoint, map layers, chat, procedures Outside your country Big tech Microsoft, AWS, Google One disruption in the chain = everything stops Outage, cyberattack, cable cut, power failure, geopolitics

We solved this for electricity. Not yet for information.

Every dispatch centre, every hospital, every critical location has an emergency generator. Not because the power grid is unreliable, but because the consequences of failure are too large to depend on a single source.

Emergency generator principle applied to information Power supply Power grid Primary source fails Emergency generator Local fallback, ready Accepted, organised, tested, obvious Information supply Cloud, SaaS Primary source fails ? No local fallback Not organised, single point of failure

For power we have the emergency generator. For information, we have ZeroComms.

How it works

A small device, about the size of a shoebox, sits at every critical location. It does three things.

The three functions of a ZeroComms device ZeroComms device At every critical location 1. Local copy Plans, maps, procedures, contacts News cache (text) Synced via uplink 2. Wifi hotspot Connect your phone, open a browser, done No apps, no accounts 3. Communication Via Starlink, 4G, microwave link Whatever still works A backup for your information architecture

Plug in anywhere. They find each other.

Devices that are set up together stay paired. Take one to another building, another town or another country, give it any internet connection, its own 4G router, a hotel Wi-Fi or a cable, and it finds the others by itself and carries on syncing.

Nothing to configure on site. No ports to open, no addresses to type in. When the connection drops, each device simply keeps serving its own copy.

ZeroComms devices in different places find each other over any network Any network usually the internet Fire station Here own 4G router Town hall Next building cable Sports hall Another town Starlink Far away Another country hotel Wi-Fi Network gone? Every device keeps working locally and catches up with the others as soon as it is back

What still works, when?

Every combination of power and internet, honestly scored. That includes the situations where ZeroComms is limited too. No scenario was picked to flatter us.

Situation Your usual tools cloud, email, chat ZeroComms on site ZeroComms between locations
Power ✓Internet ✓ A normal day ✓ Works ✓ WorksSyncs quietly in the background ✓ Works
Power ✓Internet ✓ Big tech blocked: geopolitics, trade sanctions, a vendor hack ✗ DownEmail, documents and chat live at Microsoft, Google and Meta, and can be switched off from abroad ✓ Works ✓ WorksPlain internet is enough; no big-tech dependency
Power ✓Internet ~ International cables cut or sabotaged ? UnclearDoes your email still work when it routes through a US cloud? Nobody can say in advance. ✓ Works ✓ WorksSyncs over whatever domestic connectivity remains
Power ✓Internet ✗ National outage, major cyberattack ✗ Down ✓ WorksEverything from the last sync ? DependsNeeds any surviving uplink: Starlink, a 4G island, a microwave link
Power ✗Internet ✓ Regional blackout; the grid beyond is fine ? UnclearThe cloud is up, but your routers, wifi and workstations are dark; phones last as long as their batteries ✓ WorksRuns on a small UPS ✓ WorksIf its uplink is on backup power too
Power ✗Internet ✗ Severe storm, full blackout ✗ Down ✓ WorksOn UPS: plans, maps and contacts from the last sync ? DependsOnly once an uplink returns, such as Starlink on a generator

✓ works · ? uncertain or conditional · ✗ down

Why this is different

Aspect Traditional platform ZeroComms
Code ownership Vendor Open source, to be published
Legal domain Often outside the EU Dutch foundation
If we disappear Product disappears Code stays yours
Deployment time Months to years One morning per site
Hardware Often proprietary Standard, replaceable
Cost per location High, limited scale Low, broad rollout

Sovereignty, speed and affordability, by design.

Current status

Building a pilot

We are building a pilot project with Veiligheidsregio Noord- en Oost-Gelderland (VNOG), a Dutch Safety Region responsible for fire services, disaster response and crisis management in the Achterhoek and North Veluwe area.

About

ZeroComms is built and maintained by Stichting Elemental (the Elemental Foundation), a Dutch nonprofit. No shareholders, no vendor lock-in.

Your hardware. Your data. The code is not public yet. We will publish all of it as open source, so that if we ever disappear, any IT department can carry on.

Contact

Feel free to send us an email at: inbox@elementalfoundation.eu

The Elemental Foundation · Nonprofit · Terneuzen, the Netherlands · Status