Visual notes from a Mozfest session drawn in blue and black ink show a woman in a tee shirt, jeans, and sneakers smiling and seated as if meditating with the words “We want to encourage a human-centered internet with more focus on the social human aspects” written next to her.
MozFest represents our shared hope for a human-centered internet. Credit: Photo by Connor Ballard-Pateman.


The window is closing: our MozFest 2021 call-for-proposals (CFP) closes on 23 November 2020. However, there’s still plenty of time to submit your best ideas for virtual, community-led sessions at Mozfest 2021. We’re excited for your submissions! We can’t wait to see what this year’s new combination of spaces and virtual experiences will bring to our festival and community.

Key ingredients for success

We’ve drawn these key elements from strong proposals we’ve received so far, as well as from community members who participated on our CFP support calls.

  • Trust that you belong at MozFest! MozFest is a community, as well as an event, that includes all kinds of people concerned with internet health and trustworthy AI. The internet health movement is a broad one and it needs you and your contributions to thrive.
  • Connect your idea to a specific Space or theme at the festival. You probably already have a topic for your session in mind. The next step is to think of how it connects to one of the big ideas of the next MozFest and to make those connections clear in your session proposal. You can learn more about each Space by visiting its blog post below:
  • Think of how you and your participants might stay connected after MozFest. Think of your session as the very beginning of a conversation and collaboration that can last all year. Be sure to describe how you plan to keep folks connected after MozFest and remember that the MozFest Slack is there to help sustain conversations and collaborations year-round.
Now’s the time: submit a proposal today!

Common mistakes

We can also share with you some of the common missteps we’ve seen so far that limit a proposal’s chances for selection.

  • Don’t rush through your proposal. Take time to answer each question with some specific ideas about how your session connects to the festival’s Spaces and themes or about how you might adjust things to meet the needs of your audience. Use clarity to help our reviewers understand the potential you see in your session.
  • Be clear about the type of session you’d like to facilitate at MozFest. Discussions and Workshops are meant to be engaging for your audience members. If you want to facilitate one of those sessions, be sure to center the session on what your participants have to say or what they might make together. If you’d rather demo a skill or piece of technology that contributes to internet health or more trustworthy AI, consider proposing an Art, Films, and Podcasts session or a Skills Share session instead. If you’d like to bring people together to hang out and simulate one of those famous coffee-line conversations from previous festivals, propose a Social Moments session to take its place.
  • Propose sessions that begin something new - a project, a relationship, a future, a dream. Your session should be a launchpad or springboard for ongoing collaboration with your participants. Think of ways your time together at MozFest can extend into the future through contribution to one another's work and sharing resources across your networks.

Your Session Proposal Resources: How To Get Help

There’s still plenty of time to submit a proposal to MozFest 2021, and there are plenty of ways to get feedback on your proposal before you submit. You can even edit your proposal after submitting it if you’d like to provide more detail or make a change before the CFP closes on November 23.

You can register for one of three remaining community calls meant to help you better understand MozFest and how you and your idea belong. You can register for a call through the links below:

  • Call 10 - 8 AM ET / 13:00 UTC on Tuesday, 17 November 2020.
  • Call 11 - 2 PM ET / 19:00 UTC on Tuesday, 17 November 2020.
  • Call 12- 4 PM ET / 21:00 UTC on Wednesday, 18 November 2020.

You can also ping MozFest staffer Chad Sansing to set up a 1:1 chat about your session. You can contact him on the MozFest community Slack (chadsansing), email him, or sign up for a 30-minute appointment on his calendar to talk about your proposal.

If you have any questions about how to phrase things or would like to share more about your session in another way (like on a voice call or in another language), reach out to us at [email protected] so that language isn’t a barrier in the CFP process.

Don’t forget: there’s also plenty of advice shared in resources like these:

Finally, if you’d like to keep up with all the latest news about MozFest as a potential Facilitator or attendee, you can sign up for the festival newsletter.

Become a MozFest insider!

We can’t wait to review all of the amazing ideas you’ve come up with for MozFest 2021! Be sure to submit a proposal before the CFP closes and let us know how to help.

This is a headshot of a fat, pale-skinned, short-bearded, middle-aged man in a hoodie, plaid shirt, and dark-rimmed glasses with a pink-to-purple diagolnal linear gradient over his photo.

Chad Sansing works on leadership and training, as well as Facilitator, Volunteer, and newcomer support, for MozFest. When he’s not at work, you can find him gaming, reading, or enjoying time with his family. Prior to joining Mozilla, he taught middle school for 14 years.

On the left, there is a tile with the MozFest logo over a purple-and-white illustration of the Amsterdam skyline with details about the festival listed next to it on the right.

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