| --- |
| title: HearthNet |
| emoji: 🐢 |
| colorFrom: purple |
| colorTo: pink |
| sdk: gradio |
| sdk_version: 6.16.0 |
| python_version: '3.12' |
| app_file: app.py |
| pinned: true |
| short_description: Community-Owned AI That Works Even When The Internet Doesn't |
| --- |
| |
| # 🔥 HearthNet |
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| ### Community-Owned AI That Works Even When The Internet Doesn't |
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| <p align="center"> |
| <img src="assets/banner.png" alt="HearthNet Banner" width="100%"> |
| </p> |
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| <p align="center"> |
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| 🌐 Local-First AI • 🤝 Community-Powered • 🛡️ Resilient by Design • ⚡ Offline-Capable |
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| </p> |
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| --- |
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| ## 🚨 The Problem |
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| Today's AI depends on centralized cloud infrastructure. |
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| When the internet goes down, so does access to: |
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| * 🤖 AI assistants |
| * 📚 Knowledge bases |
| * 💬 Communication platforms |
| * 🛒 Marketplaces |
| * 🗺️ Navigation and local information |
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| Whether caused by outages, disasters, censorship, infrastructure failures, or simply poor connectivity, modern communities become digitally isolated almost instantly. |
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| What if AI could continue working anyway? |
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| --- |
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| # 🔥 Introducing HearthNet |
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| **HearthNet** transforms the computers already around you into a resilient local AI network. |
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| Your gaming PC. |
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| Your neighbor's old laptop. |
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| A Raspberry Pi in a community center. |
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| An unused workstation in a local business. |
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| Together, they become a shared AI cooperative. |
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| No centralized server required. |
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| No cloud dependency required. |
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| No single point of failure. |
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| --- |
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| ## 🎬 Imagine This Scenario |
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| A storm damages the internet connection for an entire neighborhood. |
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| Most online services become unavailable. |
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| With HearthNet: |
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| ✅ AI assistants still answer questions |
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| ✅ Local document search continues working |
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| ✅ Emergency information remains available |
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| ✅ Community chat stays online |
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| ✅ Local marketplaces continue operating |
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| ✅ Knowledge remains accessible |
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| The internet disappears. |
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| The community does not. |
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| --- |
|
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| # ⚡ Key Features |
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| ## 🤖 Distributed AI Inference |
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| Every node advertises its capabilities. |
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| A gaming PC might offer: |
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| * Large Language Models |
| * Vision Models |
| * Embeddings |
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| A Raspberry Pi might offer: |
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| * Message relaying |
| * Local storage |
| * Discovery services |
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| Requests are automatically routed to the most suitable node. |
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| --- |
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| ## 📚 Local Knowledge (RAG) |
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| HearthNet can host community knowledge libraries including: |
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| * First aid manuals |
| * Emergency procedures |
| * Community resources |
| * Local guides |
| * Educational content |
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| Even completely offline. |
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| --- |
|
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| ## 🌐 Automatic Discovery |
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| No manual configuration. |
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| No IP addresses. |
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| No complex setup. |
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| Open HearthNet and nearby nodes automatically discover each other. |
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| --- |
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| ## 🛡️ Internet-Outage Resilience |
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| When the internet is available: |
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| ```text |
| Community ↔ Internet ↔ Cloud Services |
| ``` |
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| When the internet disappears: |
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| ```text |
| Community ↔ Community ↔ Community |
| ``` |
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| HearthNet automatically switches to local-first operation. |
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| --- |
|
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| ## 💬 Local Community Communication |
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| Communities can communicate directly through: |
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| * Chat |
| * Announcements |
| * Local messaging |
| * Shared information boards |
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| No external servers required. |
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| --- |
|
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| ## 🛒 Community Marketplace |
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| Buy. |
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| Sell. |
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| Trade. |
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| Share resources. |
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| Even during connectivity disruptions. |
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| --- |
|
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| # 🏗️ Architecture |
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| ```text |
| ┌───────────────────────────┐ |
| │ Frontend │ |
| └─────────────┬─────────────┘ |
| │ |
| ▼ |
| ┌───────────────────────────┐ |
| │ Capability Bus │ |
| └─────────────┬─────────────┘ |
| │ |
| ┌──────────┼──────────┐ |
| ▼ ▼ ▼ |
| |
| ┌────────┐ ┌────────┐ ┌────────┐ |
| │ LLM │ │ RAG │ │ Chat │ |
| │ Node │ │ Node │ │ Node │ |
| └────────┘ └────────┘ └────────┘ |
| |
| ▲ ▲ ▲ |
| |
| ┌────────┐ ┌────────┐ ┌────────┐ |
| │Laptop A│ │Laptop B│ │Pi Zero │ |
| └────────┘ └────────┘ └────────┘ |
| ``` |
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| --- |
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| # 🚀 Hackathon Goals |
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| Our hackathon MVP demonstrates: |
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| ### Phase 1 |
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| * [x] Node discovery |
| * [x] Capability registration |
| * [x] Local AI inference |
| * [x] Knowledge retrieval |
| * [x] Offline operation |
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| ### Phase 2 |
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| * [ ] Local marketplace |
| * [ ] Community messaging |
| * [ ] Health monitoring |
| * [ ] Distributed storage |
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| ### Phase 3 |
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| * [ ] Long-distance mesh networking |
| * [ ] Federated communities |
| * [ ] Distributed inference |
| * [ ] Federated learning |
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| --- |
|
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| # 🧠 Why This Matters |
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| AI is rapidly becoming essential infrastructure. |
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| Today, that infrastructure is mostly controlled by a handful of organizations. |
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| HearthNet explores a different future: |
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| A future where communities own and operate AI together. |
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| A future where knowledge remains available during outages. |
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| A future where local resilience is built directly into our digital systems. |
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| --- |
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| # 🌍 Potential Use Cases |
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| ## 🚑 Emergency Response |
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| Access critical information when external services are unavailable. |
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| --- |
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| ## 🏫 Schools |
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| Run local educational AI systems without constant cloud access. |
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| --- |
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| ## 🌾 Rural Communities |
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| Provide AI services in areas with limited connectivity. |
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| --- |
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| ## 🎪 Events & Festivals |
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| Create temporary local AI networks for attendees. |
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| --- |
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| ## 🏘️ Neighborhoods |
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| Community knowledge sharing and local services. |
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| --- |
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| # 🛠️ Technology Stack |
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| ### AI |
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| * llama.cpp |
| * Ollama |
| * Hugging Face Models |
| * Sentence Transformers |
|
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| ### Backend |
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| * Python |
| * FastAPI |
| * WebSockets |
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| ### Knowledge Layer |
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| * ChromaDB |
| * FAISS |
| * Local Embeddings |
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| ### Infrastructure |
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| * Docker |
| * Docker Compose |
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| ### Frontend |
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| * Gradio / Web UI |
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| --- |
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| # 👥 Team |
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| Built during the Hugging Face Hackathon ❤️ |
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| We believe that the future of AI should be: |
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| ✅ Open |
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| ✅ Local |
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| ✅ Resilient |
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| ✅ Community-Owned |
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| --- |
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| # 🤝 Join Us |
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| We're actively looking for: |
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| * AI Engineers |
| * Distributed Systems Developers |
| * Frontend Developers |
| * DevOps Engineers |
| * Designers |
| * Community Builders |
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| Ideas, feedback, contributions, and discussions are always welcome. |
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| --- |
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| # 🌟 Vision |
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| > "The cloud owns AI today. |
| > |
| > HearthNet is our bet that communities will own it tomorrow." |
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| --- |
|
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| <p align="center"> |
| Built with ❤️, ☕, open source, and a slightly unreasonable belief that neighborhoods should have their own AI. |
| </p> |
|
|
