In 2023, the Mozila Technology Fund built on the success of our 2022 cohort by focusing on a subsection of the bias and transparency space: auditing tools for AI systems. Based on our learnings from the 2022 cohort, we saw auditing as an emerging area of tooling that was under-resourced and where we saw a real opportunity for impact. In collaboration with leading researchers like Deb Raji and Abeba Birhane, we designed a call for proposals and cohort with the goal of growing, supporting, and better coordinating the community of AI auditors through tooling and resources. We made awards of $50,000 each to eight projects, including the AI Forensics project from our 2022 cohort, which has continued to build on its successes from 2022.
In 2024, we decided to apply the MTF model to a new and emerging field in artificial intelligence: AI technology for environmental justice. Increasingly, we are learning about the effects that the growing use of AI will have on ecosystems and the people who live in them. What steps might we take to reduce the environmental and climate impacts of AI adoption? And is there a role AI systems can play in addressing topics like environmental degradation, climate change, indigenous justice, food justice and energy justice? In 2024, the Mozilla Technology Fund convened 10 AI projects which are making a positive impact in ecosystems and human communities, in an attempt to answer these questions; each project received an award of $50,000 USD.
To date, the Mozilla Technology Fund has made more than $1M in awards over the course of three years and as many cohorts. Each year we build on the learnings from previous years to provide more helpful accompaniments, guidance, resources and convenings and to better measure the progress and impact of our fund. The impacts and learnings from 2023 and beyond will be reported in subsequent impact reports.