We are thrilled to announce the next round of MozFest Trustworthy AI Working Groups and open its call for projects!

During the last round of working groups, over 250 participants came together to support 6 trustworthy AI (TAI) projects.

We hope to engage even more community members with projects that create and promote Trustworthy AI through new and inspiring projects led by community members like you.

About the working groups

Working groups will begin meeting in September 2021 and carry on through April 2022 and will engage both Builders and Civil Society Actors who want to create and promote Trustworthy AI projects and communities of practice.

Trustworthy AI is helpful — rather than harmful — to human beings. For us, this means two things: human agency is a core part of how AI is built and integrated and corporate accountability is real and enforced. AI impacts nearly every technology we interact with today, and how we approach AI determines how much privacy, safety, trust, transparency, and fairness we create for ourselves and one another online and off.

We think of Builders as people who create software and technical policies, regulations, and regulations related to TAI, including developers and technically-oriented policy-makers.

We think of Civil Society Actors as people outside government and industry working in their local and global communities through art, journalism, policy-making, research, scholarship, activism and technical literacy efforts, who care about the impact of artificial intelligence.

We are convening 2 different working groups this time ahead of MozFest 2022, one for each group.

Building Trustworthy AI Working Group

The Building Trustworthy AI Working Group for AI builders is an engaged community of over 250 global members who aim to help our technical community build more Trustworthy AI. This group will continue some of the projects from the last round, as well as invite in new members and projects for 2021-2022. We invite developers, funders, and policy-makers expressly concerned with technical products and standards to this group.

Our three main goals of this working group are to:

1. establish best practices in key areas of TAI.
2. include more diverse stakeholders involved in building AI.
3. develop new technologies as building blocks for developers.

Civil Society Actors for Trustworthy AI Working Group

The Civil Society Actors for Trustworthy AI Working Group is for civil society actors engaged with AI and the promotion of trustworthy solutions in their communities and work. We welcome global and local activists, artists, journalists, organizers, and researchers already working on Trustworthy AI and those who are interested in doing so to this group.

Our three main goals of this working group are to:

1. increase the number of civil society actors promoting Trustworthy AI as a key part of their work.
2. include more diverse stakeholders in designing, procuring, deploying, and regulating AI.
3. empower citizens to hold companies accountable for the trustworthiness of their AI.

Project leads

Project leads are expected to participate in monthly working group community calls, project calls that they organize and lead, and mentoring calls with working group co-chairs.

The MozFest will support these leads by providing access to experts, mentorship on project challenges, and opportunities to share their projects at MozFest 2022.

If there are specific needs or areas of support you’d like us to consider ahead of submitting a proposal, please let us know. We are happy to discuss possibilities with you.

We also expect all project leads and participants to abide by MozFest’s Community Participation Guidelines.

Get Involved: A Call for Projects

We are welcoming submissions from potential project leads who would like to join a Trustworthy AI working group and have an interest and/or expertise in either:

• building a prototype of a tool or technology that promotes Trustworthy AI for the Building Trustworthy AI Working Group.
• launching a project or community of practice that helps civil society actors understand and promote Trustworthy AI as an essential part of their work for the Civil Society Actors for Trustworthy AI Working Group.

Projects should:

• be proposed and led by potential project leads interested in joining a Trustworthy AI working group.
• be experimental.
• have a deliverable outcome like a hosting a convening or event, launching a product or technology, developing a set of practices or standards, or producing a research project such as whitepaper.
• demonstrate clear connections to the goals of the working group.
• work openly and share work under an open license like CC BY 2.0.
• engage the MozFest community and share their work at MozFest 2022.

The MozFest team supports project leads in a number of ways, including providing:

• Access to a group of AI builders and civil society peer experts to support your project
• Mentorship and guidance from staff and Fellows at Mozilla with expertise ranging from AI to community management to project governance.
• A platform to showcase your work to a broader audience at MozFest 2022

To propose your project, click on the “Submit your proposal!” button. Proposals are due by Friday, 30 July 2021.

What Happens After I Submit A Project Proposal?

You can expect to hear if your project was accepted via email by mid-August. Projects will begin in September of 2021.

If your project is selected, you will be notified via email of next steps. If not, we hope you will continue to support other projects in the working group as a working group participant to create and promote more trustworthy AI.

The review process

Temi Popo and Chad Sansing, Program Managers on the MozFest Team at the Mozilla Foundation, will review the projects in consultation with colleagues at the Mozilla Foundation. They will focus on the following criteria:

• Clarity: Does your project proposal provide a clear understanding of what you hope to achieve?
• Area(s) of impact: Does the goal of your project align with Mozilla’s priorities to create and promote more trustworthy AI so that we can identify specific ways to support your work in the short and long term?
• Feasibility: Will you have enough time and the necessary resourcing to produce a deliverable output in 6 months ahead of MozFest 2022?
• MozFest Alignment: How will this project leverage MozFest in its design cycle? What do post-MozFest outcomes look like?

With help from their colleagues, Temi and Chad will decide on 6 projects for each working group.

Who might contribute to my project?

Leads for selected projects will have the opportunity to pitch the work during our September call, and then working group participants will join the projects that align with the interests and expertise.

Stay connected

Remember, you can submit your project proposal here:

If you have questions about proposing or leading a project, please reach out to either of the MozFest team working group chairs Temi Popo or Chad Sansing.

To keep up with the latest news about MozFest and the working groups, subscribe to our newsletter, follow MozFest on Twitter, and join us on LinkedIn. You can also join the MozFest community Slack to meet other people contributing to the internet health and TAI movements.

We are excited to review your proposals and convene our next cohort of working group leads and participants. Thank you for everything you do to create and promote more Trustworthy AI for us all!