A Vision for Open Innovation: ARDC’s Strategy at a Glance

March 21, 2025

Since 2019, ARDC has been making grants to support many wonderful projects that align with our mission of advancing amateur radio and digital communications science and technology. Throughout the course of our grantmaking, we’ve faced philosophical and practical questions from both our community and each other:

  • What do we mean by digital communications?
  • At ARDC, we support communication technology that is open, accessible, and free from barriers. Why is open source technology and access so important to us, and how does it relate to amateur radio?
  • Ultimately, what is ARDC trying to do, and for what purpose?

For the past year or so, we have been working on articulating answers to these questions, resulting in our vision statement and our accompanying strategy. We are pleased to finally be able to share them with you.

ARDC’s Vision Statement:

A thriving global community of learners, experimenters, and contributors advancing freedom with open source communication and information technology.

ARDC’s Strategy:

  • Learning: getting more people learning about amateur radio (AR) and digital communications (DC).
  • Experimenting: getting more people experimenting, innovating, and developing technology (in the context of AR and DC).
  • Doing: getting more people using new technology productively on more (and newer) bands, modes, and technologies (and other dimensions) within the context of AR and DC.

More details about our vision and strategy can be found below:

The Bigger Picture

Rooted at the intersection of traditional amateur radio (AR) and the emergence of the Internet, with one ‘foot’ planted in AR, and the other planted within the larger context of digital communications (DC), we aim to build on the overlap between AR and DC, fostering innovation through freely available, open, and collaborative methods. By embracing both wired and wireless DC, our focus is on unlicensed or easily licensed spectrum, ensuring that experimentation and deployment are not restricted by gatekeepers.

With all of the above in mind, our goal is to empower makers, hackers, and/or developers to utilize freely available tools, knowledge, and platforms for learning and innovation. Unlike R&D efforts focused on commercial applications like traditional 5G wireless development, we dedicate our efforts to underexplored areas of AR and DC that are less likely to be funded, ensuring that technological advancements benefit the entire community rather than only a select few.

The Road Ahead

Our strategic roadmap reflects our commitment to sustainable, inclusive, and impactful technological advancements and thus supports our overall vision. By empowering individuals and fostering community-driven innovation, we are laying the groundwork for the future of open and accessible communication technologies. Whether you’re an educator, a researcher, a developer, or simply someone curious about technology, there’s a place for you to learn, experiment, and contribute in this rapidly evolving field. To explore more about ARDC’s vision and strategy, we encourage you to visit the following links: