Looking to learn more about or engage with Mozilla Fellows and Awardees around the world? Keep your eye on the Mozilla Foundation blog to stay up-to-date with regular updates about these leaders and their work by reviewing the current and upcoming news and announcements below. You can also see a directory of all Mozilla Fellows and Awardees here.

AI and internet health

News from current fellows and awardees

• Launch of an exciting blog series from the Common Voice fellows, starting with Kiswahili blogs for the Kiswahili community. The first two blog posts are here and here.
• Fellow Remy Muhire helped support the launch of Mbaza Chatbot in Rwanda — a tool developed off Common Voice that provides timely and accurate information about the Covid-19 pandemic in the Kinyarwanda, French, and English languages.
• Fellow Umang Bhatt​ has been accepted into the Turing Enrichment Scheme for 2021 at the Alan Turing Institute.
• Fellow Sylvie Delacroix sat down with Mozilla Foundation Executive Director, Mark Surman, to talk about creating data trusts.
• Fellows Odanga Madung and Brian Obilo featured in a number of publications reporting on their research into Kenyan social media disinformation. Twitter also met with Odanga and Mozilla after seeing the research, removed about 100 fake accounts, and also verified Odanga’s Twitter account. Read selected news coverage below:
  • In Kenya, Influencers Are Hired to Spread Disinformation — in WIRED
  • Verified Twitter Users in Kenya are Being Paid to Spread Disinformation — in VICE
  • “Disinformation influencers” for hire, only $15 a day — in Rest of World
  • In Kenya, micro-influencers paid $ 10 a day to misinform on Twitter — in Les Numeriques
  • New Mozilla research shows how malicious Twitter attacks are affecting the Kenyan civil society — in HapaKenya

Fellowship and Awardee Alumni News

• Science Gallery Dublin X Ars Electronica 2021 — a collaborative event and a web-based virtual museum, featuring a Creative Media Awards alumni Noah Levenson and current CMA grantee, Johann Diedrick.
• AI 4 Afrika podcast as well as the article Afro Algorithms: Imagining new possibilities for race, technology, and the future through animated storytelling — featuring a Creative Media Alumni Anatola Araba.

Events and Launches (recent and upcoming)

• 2022 Mozilla Senior Fellowship recruitment launched on 23 September, with a focus on Trustworthy AI. Applications close 23 October 2021.
• Four of the nine current Creative Media Awards projects have launched:
  • Hope Immersive: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/hope-documentary-traces-the-beginnings-of-new-black-led-uk-task-force-to-tackle-ai-bias-and-discrimination/
  • Artificial Intelligence + Carnival + Creativity: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/virtual-carnival-experiences-showcase-how-ai-can-extend-black-creativity-and-joy/
  • Dark Matters: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/dark-matters-new-project-spotlights-the-inbuilt-bias-in-digital-voice-assistants/

Program Updates

• Shift — Living in the Digital Age — featuring Chenai Chair in Deutsche Welle
• Creating real-world data trusts… — featuring Mark Surman in conversation with Sylvie Delacroix, co-chair of the Data Trusts Initiative

Recent posts from fellows + awardees