Save the Date! Mozilla Festival 2023 will take place 20-24 March.

MozFest will continue as a virtual event in 2023, with the exciting addition of in-person, global events in a few strategic locations:

• in London, United Kingdom for the Ethical Dilemma Cafe with our VnA friends (23–25 September 2022)
• in Amsterdam, Netherlands for MozFest House (dates tbd)
• in Kenya with our Mradi friends (dates tbd)
• in India for the Strengthening Data Ecosystems Working groups (dates tbd)

Our Virtual Festival: The MozFest Plaza

The Mozilla Festival, like the rest of the world, shifted to an online format in 2021 due to the global pandemic. While many parts of the globe have opened up travel and eliminated restrictions, other parts of the world have not. With the safety and health of our global community in mind, our keystone festival will remain online for 2023. This allows for all to participate fully, providing a more inclusive and open environment.

Year-Round, In-Person Events

Year-round, in-person events support the broader ecosystem of MozFest as a convening and community organising tool for the internet health movement. These events are community focused and designed to deepen partnerships and collaborations, supporting how we talk about Trustworthy AI. These events are co-designed with a set of local partners and facilitators and drawing from and supporting MozFest, the centrepiece of the ecosystem.

MozFest House

MozFest House was born in 2017 out of a need to accommodate our growing community in London. We took over a single venue in central London for our friends and allies to host their own decentralised workshops, meetups, and hackathons based on focused topics.

MozFest House will be hosted in Amsterdam, Netherlands to honour the city as our new “host” city, beginning in 2021. These MozFest House events will be co-designed with local partners on local issues, with the intention that local communities will be those to attend.

Ethical Dilemma Cafe

We first created the Ethical Dilemma Cafe for MozFest in 2014, where we explored the ethical dilemmas faced online everyday, but rarely imagined in our physical lives.

Now in 2022, we are developing this concept further to re-explore & re-imagine these real life dilemmas. In partnership with the BBC, we opened an Ethical Dilemma cafe in Manchester in April 2022, discussing the blend of online & offline data use, and how it can be used to surprise, provoke, and pose real questions about personal data.

Continuing to partner with the BBC, we will develop a blueprint for the Ethical Dilemma Cafe to be replicated across other organisations who can bring their specific data dilemmas to their local communities and organise their own Ethical Dilemma Cafes.

The first “micro” Ethical Dilemma Cafe for the 2023 MozFest season will be in London 23–25 September 2022, during the London Design Festival.

So far, we are planning two in-person events, with others likely to be added to the calendar.

Mradi - Kenya

Over the past few decades, the African continent has seen growth in technological development and its governance, especially in East and Southern Africa. Our goal, through hosting a MozFest Africa Mradi convening in 2023, is to explore how emerging technologies like AI intersect with social justice issues, both on and offline. To do this, Mradi partners with local organisations to build a critical mass of multi-disciplinary actors aligned with the Mozilla pledge for a healthy internet and Trustworthy AI, in particular those that are working towards strengthening agency and accountability. The MozFest Africa Mradi convening will connect our partners and growing MozFest community across East and Southern Africa.

Data Stewardship in Schools - India

Increasingly, schools around the world are collecting various types of data—attendance data, test scores, discipline records—and using that data to inform administrative and pedagogical decision-making. Over the last year Mozilla with Quicksand and USAID sought to understand this landscape of data ecosystems within public school systems in India, to inform both Indian and global stakeholders and to start a conversation around data benefits and harms in this context. In some cases, this data is collected, stored and managed by the educational institutions themselves, in other cases, large technology companies serve as intermediaries. While there is great potential for the use of this data to improve educational outcomes, there is also a real risk of harm to students and teachers if this data is mismanaged, misused or improperly stored.

Mozilla is interested in addressing two pressing issues in this space:

1. ensuring that decision makers (School administrators, government officials, teachers, etc.) have the fluency to advocate for data practices that serve their students
2. ensuring that those impacted by data-based decisions (students, parents, teachers, and student advocacy groups) understand what data is being collected, how it is being used and how to object to any misuse.

Mozilla will seek working groups located in India which are interested in exploring the questions listed below, in pursuit of greater understanding, ownership and stewardship of data that is collected and used in schools. More details coming soon in our newsletter!

Engage with MozFest All Year Long

As you can see, MozFest is no longer just a one-and-done annual event. Yes, we still gather annually for our cornerstone event, but we also host events, workshops, and opportunities to get involved throughout the year. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn, join Slack, and subscribe to our newsletter to make sure you don’t miss any exciting opportunities to make our digital world a more humane place, for all.