Mozilla is seeking applicants for its third Data Futures Lab cohort: people and projects building alternative and openly-crowdsourced datasets.

(SAN FRANCISCO, CA | OCTOBER 10, 2022) -- Mozilla is looking for organisations building alternative and openly-crowdsourced datasets and inviting them to join the Data Futures Lab.

Today, the Data Futures Lab is announcing its 2023 cohort call for proposals. Specifically, we are interested in supporting organisations building technology platforms that mobilise communities to contribute their data for a shared benefit in any domain (health, transportation, labor rights, gig-work, research, consumer advocacy, and beyond). We’re specifically interested in projects committed to implementing ethical and fair data collection, storage, and use towards solving a public interest problem. Each of the selected awardees will receive up to $100,000 and support from Mozilla for one year starting January 2023.

Applications will be open from 10 October to 11 November. To learn more about the criteria and to apply, go here.

What do we mean by alternative and openly-crowdsourced datasets?

Voluntary donations of data can be a radical way of changing our relationship with technology and big databases. Different models of data crowdsourcing are already being used in different sectors, like the healthcare sector where there have been early detections of disease as a result of the data received from individuals.

We believe these projects have the potential to shift power and value in our data economy back towards marginalised individuals and communities. We have been exploring some of these opportunities through projects like RegretsReporter, where users contributed their YouTube interactions to better understand the recommendation algorithm, or Common Voice, where users contribute their own voice recordings to a common dataset. But we know there are many other projects engaging users to donate their data and working towards solving public interest issues.

With this cohort we hope to further the design of these models and share replicable learnings and insights more broadly. We want to ensure that even more data donation is done – and done responsibly and beneficially for individuals.

Says Miguel Morachimo, Program Officer at Mozilla, “We are excited to seek and support organisations and prototypes working creatively with their communities in gathering data, building trust, and tackling important societal issues. We want to identify, support and amplify these initiatives as they become reference cases for equitable data practices.”

Morachimo adds: “We look forward to leveraging Mozilla’s own expertise in technology and community engagement to support our future grantees. For this, we will work closely with our network of Mozilla collaborators, fellows and advisors, including our Senior Policy Fellow Brandi Geurkink, creator of RegretsReporter.”

Launched in 2020, the Data Futures Lab connects and funds people around the world who are building platforms that disrupt our extractive data economy. Its mission is to ensure that, in an increasingly data-driven world, the rights and interests of the people and communities from which data is harnessed are protected and prioritized.

The 2023 cohort will take on the baton from this year’s group, made up of Driver’s Co-op, Driver’s Seat Cooperative, Place and Digital Democracy.

Press contact: Shandukani O. | [email protected]