Mozilla Responsible Computing Challenge Holds United States Summit at Harvard
By Mozilla | Nov. 3, 2023
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Mozilla and its partners brought grantees together for two days of community and critical engagement
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On October 26-27th, Mozilla held a summit for its 15 new awardees in the Responsible Computing Challenge (RCC) at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. The event was hosted by the team behind Embedded EthiCS at Harvard, a previous Mozilla RCC awardee.
With the support of Omidyar Network, Schmidt Futures, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, Mellon Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and USAID, RCC has become a global movement to bring ethics into computing education, seeking to train the next generation of technology leaders. U.S. RCC awardees have gone on to do incredible things, from helping to draft the White House’s AI Bill of Rights, to changing the lives of the thousands of students they have collectively taught.
Awardees spent the day learning from the RCC community and alumni, sharing their experiences as changemakers in their universities. Mozilla was delighted to have Patricia Hswe and Maria Sachiko Cecire from the Mellon Foundation join as speakers at the summit to share their knowledge of mission-driven, programmatic development. In line with our commitment to fostering connections between universities and both local and global community-based organizations, we were also proud to welcome Bridgette Wallace of G{Code} and Abhilash Mishra of Equitech Futures, as leaders in civil society.
It’s incredible to see people come together around the shared mission of building a healthier tech ecosystem. As we grapple with responding to new challenges like AI, our RCC community continues to rise to the occasion and demonstrates that the humanities not only deserve to be at the table in ethical computing education, but should be joining others at the head of the table.
Dr. Ziyaad Bhorat, RCC Fellow
Mozilla looks forward to working with its new awardees and their institutions as they join a global RCC community that includes Kenya and, soon, India. Over the next year, awardees will be implementing responsible computing into their curricula and classrooms, covering topics that include Black public interest technology, digital disability cultures, and AI debiasing.
