Mozilla Fellowship and Awards News April 2020

Mitigating the effects of COVID-19: News from Fellows and Awardees

• Digital Contact Tracing Round-Table — Is Letting Companies Retrace Our Steps One Step Too Far? highlighting a conversation with Fellows Richard Whitt, Divij Joshi, and Federike Kaltheuner
• The New Possible a new site launched by Frederike Kaltheuner to serve as a collection of actions, policies and projects that COVID-19 has made possible and that were previously unthinkable.
• Surveillance won’t stop the coronavirus by fellow Petra Molnar in the New York Times
• COVID-19: Experts raise privacy concerns about Aarogya Setu app by fellow Divij Joshi in Down to Earth
• Indian Government launches Aarogya Setu app to track Coronavirus infections featuring fellow Frederike Kaltheuner
• CoViD-19 Related Government Digital Surveillance and Tech Measures in India by Fellow Divij Joshi
• India’s digital response to COVID-19 risks inefficacy and discrimination by fellow Divij Joshi and former fellow Amba Kak in Caravan
• Helping networks adopt RPKI amid COVID-19 by fellow Mohammad Abdul Awal in Pulse
• The power of organizing and networks in a crisis by former fellow Cori Zarek in Beek Center
• Rapid virtual meeting prototyping in the age of a pandemic by Mozilla staff Amy Raikar and Janice Wait
• During the Pandemic, the FCC Must Provide Internet for All by former fellow Gigi Sohn in Wired.
• The Theoretical Advantages and the Very Real Risks of App-Based Contact Tracing by fellow Francesco Lapenta in Data Ethics blog
• Teaching Computing during the COVID-19 Crisis by Fellow Kathy Pham, Jenn Beard and RCS Challenge teams
• Conference Tools Weren't Designed to Be Social Networks by former Fellow Caroline Sinders in Glitch

Coverage about developing issues and policies

• Who (really) targets you? Facebook in Polish election campaigns by Fellow Karolina Iwańska and her colleagues at Panoptykon Foundation, Sotrender, and the ePaństwo Foundation.

Other coverage about AI and internet health

• One of last year's Creative Media Awards projects - Stealing Ur Feelings by Noah Levenson - has been nominated for a Webby!

Events (recent)

• Trustworthy AI in the time of a pandemic April 28 Twitter chat with Frederike Kaltheuner
• Dialogues and Debates panel: Contact-Tracing — Could letting tech companies retrace our steps be one step too far? Featuring fellows Frederike Kaltheuner, Richard Whitt, and Divij Joshi
• Wampum.codes Virtual Panel: Indigenous Tech and Indigenous Knowledge Dot Codes panel April 28 featuring Amelia Winger-Bearskin in coordination with Open Documentary Lab at MIT

Opportunities

• MOSS COVID-19 solutions fund
  • On 3/31, MOSS announced a COVID-19 solutions fund. The fund will be providing awards of up to $50,000 for anything that’s open-source and which can help address the COVID-19 crisis. Applications have been paused at this time. Learn more.
• Applications now open for the Mozilla Fellowship for Tech + Society fellowship track
• Grant for the Web announced its first public Call for Proposals
• 3 new fellows announced

Updates from Organizational Partners

The organization in which many fellows are embedded have been working on meaningful initiatives and campaigns addressing COVID-19 and related topics, which we have included in this post:

The Internet Health Movement and COVID-19 - As more people than ever before rely on the internet, digital rights organizations are adapting their work to the pandemic. We’re sharing a roundup of the work our allies across the movement are doing. They include guides to working securely from home, research into how governments are tracking the virus (and, as a result, internet users), and much more.