Participate
Join, contribute, shape the roadmap. Don't expect a traditional membership — participation is designed around what you want to do.
Who the foundation is for
We welcome organizations and individuals across the wired value chain. The ten categories below describe the composition of the foundation today — including universities and colleges — but every member shapes how the foundation works tomorrow.
Silicon
Shape the silicon-facing specs and reference designs that downstream members will build on.
Network operators
Co-develop deployment-ready architectures that cut operator cost and risk across mixed-media estates.
Electric utilities
Bring grid-scale resilience and regulatory requirements into the foundation's security and interop work.
Smart buildings
Reuse pre-validated designs for retrofit and new-build connectivity across existing wiring.
Industrial automation
Deterministic, secure edge fabrics for brownfield industrial sites — with real interop evidence.
Automotive
Align in-vehicle wired stacks with the broader ecosystem — from manufacturing plants to the vehicle itself.
OEMs & System integrators
Ship interoperable products faster using shared reference code and public conformance results.
Software partners
Plug into an open control plane with clear interfaces — no single-vendor lock-in to onboard customers.
Data centers
Enable storage accelerators and deterministic connectivity across core and edge data centers — bridging open standards into deployable, operator-grade architectures.
Universities & education
Bring research, students, and curriculum into the foundation — host Academy labs, contribute to open projects, and turn shipped work into recognized credentials.
Three ways to participate
Pick the one that matches where you are. None of them lock you out of the others — companies become projects, individuals become ambassadors, ambassadors get certified, and certified practitioners often end up contributing to the projects they teach.
As an individual
For engineers, architects, operators, educators, and students who want to build credibility in wired infrastructure beyond any single vendor.
- Contribute to open projects on the Build page
- Pursue a certification based on skills and shipped work
- Join Academy cohorts and author training material
- Speak, mentor, and review at foundation events
As a company
For silicon vendors, operators, integrators, OEMs, and software partners who want deployable interoperability without reinventing every lab, every time.
- Sponsor and co-develop open projects and reference architectures
- Steer the roadmap through technical working groups (one seat, one vote)
- Validate devices against public conformance suites — no per-vendor lab fees
- Hire and grow certified people from a neutral talent pool
As an ambassador
For senior practitioners who want to evangelize open wired infrastructure in their region, industry vertical, or discipline.
- Lead local meetups, workshops, and lab days
- Author field notes and case studies in the Journal
- Review contributions to Academy curricula
- Help onboard new member companies in your market
Our certification model measures mastery, implementation experience, and contribution — not vendor budget. An individual shipping interop deployments gets recognized alongside a major silicon vendor's reference team. That's the point.
What you get back
- Recognition. Credentials and badges that describe what you’ve actually done — verifiable, portfolio-linked, and shareable on LinkedIn and beyond.
- Leverage. Reference architectures and conformance suites you didn’t have to pay for.
- Neutral ground. Technical rooms where “what ships?” wins over “whose product?”
- A long horizon. A foundation designed to outlast single-product cycles.
- Faster time to market. Shared reference code and public conformance results cut the cost and risk of shipping interoperable products.
- A neutral talent pool. Hire and grow certified people whose credentials travel across employers and vendors.
- Roadmap influence. One seat, one vote in the technical working groups that set direction.
- Security readiness. CRA- and NIST-aligned baselines, threat models, and secure-update patterns you can adopt directly.
Use cases & practical examples
The foundation’s work is build-first, so the easiest way to understand it is to look at what it makes possible. A sample of deployment patterns members are working on:
Hybrid broadband access
An operator blends fiber to the building with coax and powerline inside it — managed as one fabric, validated against public conformance suites instead of per-vendor labs.
Smart-building retrofit
A building owner reuses existing copper and coax to deliver gigabit connectivity without re-cabling, using pre-validated reference designs for brownfield sites.
Data-center storage acceleration
Deterministic wired links and storage accelerators bridge core and edge data centers — open standards turned into deployable, operator-grade architectures.
Industrial edge fabric
A manufacturer brings deterministic, secure connectivity to a brownfield plant over mixed media, with CRA- and NIST-aligned hardening baked into the reference stack.
Utility grid resilience
A distribution operator extends monitoring over existing wiring, bringing grid-scale resilience requirements into shared security and interoperability work.
University research-to-deployment
A lab contributes to open projects and hosts Academy labs, turning student and research work into recognized credentials and real shipped contributions.
Ready? Talk to us on the contact page, or head straight into the projects on the bench.