Personal experience working remotely from La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain. Opening talk at repeople.co La Palma 2021

1. Un privilegio al alcance de muchos: trabajar en remoto desde La Palma
repeople.co conference 2021
23 de Noviembre de 2021
La Palma, Islas Canarias, ES
Agustín Benito Bethencourt
Oniro Program Manager
Eclipse Foundation
CC-BY-SA 4.0
A privilege within the reach of
many: working remotely from La
Palma

2. About @toscalix

3. @toscalix
● Agustín Benito Bethencourt. Palmero (Los Llanos). Remote
worker.
● Oniro Program Manager at Eclipse Foundation (remote-first
organization).
● Experience in different industries as manager/consultant.
OS/platform-based products and tooling. Contributor to several
FLOSS communities (KDE, openSUSE…).
● Worked in colocated, hybrid and remote-friendly/first/only
organizations. Frequent traveler. More about Agustín at his site.

4. 1. Getting closer...
2. Toscalix’s journey as remote worker.
3. It is all about community
Talking Points

5. 1.- Getting closer...

6. ● The telegraph arrived to the Canary Islands in 1884.
● First RNE (radio) broadcast from the mainland, live to the
Canary Islands in 1964.
● The first coaxial cable to the mainland of Spain was deployed in
1965 (Pencan-1).
● First TVE broadcasted live from the mainland to the Canary
Islands in 1971.
La Palma was far, far away.

7. ● The first optic fiber cable connecting Tenerife and Gran Canaria
was deployed in 1985 (Optican).
● Canary Islands and the mainland first connected through optic
fiber in 1990 (Pecan-4).
● La Palma linked to Tenerife through optic fiber (Tegopa) in
1994.
● ADSL arrived to La Palma homes around 2000.
● Optic fiber and 4G available to palmeros in 2014.
● 5G, end of 2020, beginning of 2021?
30 years of catching up.

8. ● Today La Palma is connected to Tenerife through 3 cables,
Tegopa-S2, Telapa and Canarylink as well as through radio
links.
● Connectivity with Tenerife through optic fiber will improve
even more.
○ Kudos to the IAC, La Palma’s guardian angel in so many topics...
● Most relevant mobile operators are present in La Palma.
● There is a local company providing WiMAX in rural areas.
La Palma is first world.

9. ● La Palma has been data-isolated for years. It is catching up in
the last 25/30 years.
● Populated areas of La Palma have today comparable
connectivity to similar areas in other European countries .
● The challenge remains to improve coverage, bandwidth and
latency in rural areas (North and South areas of the island).
Takeaways: connectivity is the
new airport

10. 2.- Toscalix’s journey as remote
worker

11. ● Based in Tenerife. Colocated environment.
● Coming to La Palma for vacation only. Remote work
only as exception.
● Offline work, mobile (SMS and calls) and fax.
Connectivity in La Palma mostly through modem (slow)
or RDSI (expensive).
Prehistory: before 2000

12. ● Based in Tenerife. Frequent traveller within the
Canaries. Hybrid environment.
● Laptop (portable) with Debian/XFCE. Nokia Phone.
● Arrival of ADSL and 3G allowed me to stay long
weekends and slightly extend vacations in La Palma.
The ancient age: 2000 - 2005

13. ● Based in Tenerife. Working from home. Frequent
travels.
● Distributed environment (UTC / UTC+1).
● Laptop (portable) with Kubuntu. Nokia phones.
● Remote Work from La Palma. Long weekends and
extended vacations.
The middle age: from 2005 to
2008

14. ● Based in Málaga/Madrid. Frequent travels.
● Hybrid first then remote-only (UTC / UTC+1).
● Laptop with Kubuntu. Nokia phone.
● Remote Work from La Palma. Long weekends and
extended vacations.
The modern age: from 2009 to
2010

15. ● Worked abroad. Frequent travels, mostly EU.
● Colocated and hybrid.
● Highly distributed environments (UTC - 8 / UTC + 8).
● Extended vacations in La Palma (remote work).
● Adapted set up: laptop (openSUSE+KDE) + mobile
(Android).
The modern age: from 2011 to
2015

16. Second half of 2015
● Based in La Palma. Frequel travels worldwide.
● Remote work.
● Distributed environments across different time zones.
● Notebook (openSUSE + KDE). Android phone. Tablet.
● Failed due to logistics (flights).
The contemporary age: from 2015

17. ● Based in Málaga, ES. Frequent travels.
● Remote work.
● Distributed environment across different time zones.
● 3 months/year working from La Palma (home office).
● Notebook (openSUSE + KDE). Android phone. Tablet.
The contemporary age: from 2015
to COVID

18. ● No travels. 50/50% La Palma/Málaga.
● Distributed environments mostly within EU.
● Ultrabook (openSUSE + KDE). Android phone.
Remarkable2.
The contemporary age:
COVID/Volcano

19. Post COVID/Volcano
● Based in Málaga (home office). Frequent travels.
● Eclipse Foundation is a remote-first environment.
● Oniro is a distributed/remote project (UTC - 8 / UTC +
8).
● Remote work from La Palma 2/3 months per year.
The future

20. ● My story with remote work in La Palma is tightly linked to
connectivity improvements timeline.
● Remote work from populated areas of La Palma presents
no challenges today. It has been like that for several years
now.
● COVID has boosted remote work everywhere.
● We could/should have started earlier. As happened with
connectivity, we need to catch up. It is feasible. Let’s do it!
Takeaway: working from La
Palma? Yep.

21. 3.- It is all about community

22. ● Our main industries (tourism, construction and
farming) are in increasing tension with a life in harmony
with our environment, our main asset.
● Our model was in crisis before COVID.
● As result, preserving the essence of our way of living
and our environment cannot depend on further growth
based on our existing economic model.
A crisis

23. ● Remote work opens the door for new opportunities
● If we look at them with the same old glasses, we might
bring additional wealth and prosperity, if we do it
right… but will change very little.
● We would be ignoring the core value associated to this
new opportunity.
An opportunity

24. The core value associated to remote workers is what
they know as well as how they learn it.
The core value

25. ● Remote workers will come to La Palma to live a unique
experience.
● To achieve it, interacting with others is essential. MOst of the
times this involve other remote workers (hubs).
● So in addition to creating the conditions to turn La Palma into a
hub, we should invest in creating communities formed also by
palmeros, specially the younger ones, living here.
Goal: to capture that core value

26. Our ability to create the environments that favour the
creation and growth of communities formed by both,
palmeros and remote workers, represents a unique
opportunity to leverage a profound change in our society,
promoting industries that reduces friction with our
environment as well as a positive changes in the existing
ones.
Takeaway:

27. Thank you repeople.co
Agustín Benito Bethencourt
@toscalix

28. Q&A