COATI – the Collective for Autonomy in Interpreting Technology- was formed in Barcelona in 2009, bringing together people who had participated in anti-capitalist and anti-globalisation movements. We had supported the peasant farmers of Via Campesina in the creation of the movement for Food Sovereignty, and had volunteered as interpreters (sometimes in very precarious conditions) and seen the value of good alternative technology; we had learnt to organise horizontally and by consensus in the Do-It-Yourself culture of anarchist and anti-capitalist social centres all over Europe; we had built an understanding of technology in the squatted hacklabs and free software communities; we learnt about sound systems running hardcore punk festivals, street parties and independent, community-based radio stations; and it was those experiences, and the values of those communities, that inspired the project.