The Mozilla Foundation is an American non-profit organization that exists to support and collectively lead the open source Mozilla project. Founded in July 2003, the organization sets the policies that govern development, operates key infrastructure and controls Mozilla trademarks and copyrights. It owns two taxable subsidiaries: the Mozilla Corporation, which employs many Mozilla developers and coordinates releases of the Mozilla Firefox web browser, and MZLA Technologies Corporation, which employs developers to work on the Mozilla Thunderbird email client and coordinate its releases. The Mozilla Foundation was founded by the Netscape-affiliated Mozilla Organization. The organization is currently based in the Silicon Valley city of Mountain View, California, United States.
The Mozilla Foundation describes itself as “a non-profit organization that promotes openness, innovation and participation on the Internet”. The Mozilla Foundation is guided by the Mozilla Manifesto, which lists 10 principles which Mozilla believes “are critical for the Internet to continue to benefit the public good as well as commercial aspects of life.
This fellowship is focused at the intersection of technology and civil society and exists in part because of the power—and resource—imbalance that public interest technologists and civil society organizations in the Global Majority are experiencing.
Critical civil society organizations fight inequality, protect the public, and partner with the public sector to serve citizenship. In the era of ubiquitous technology, it’s paramount that civil society also work to address societal issues, as they converge with the digital world. Increasing collective impact at the intersection of technology and society will help fortify the relevance and sustainability of public interest movements and technologists—and help to advance a more human-centered internet.
This fellowship is designed to bring technological strategists and civil society leaders together into collaboration. By pairing technologists [as fellows] with civil society organizations [as host organizations], the program aims to increase the impact of the organizations’ work and enhance their ability to address societal issues that intersect with technology. This is rooted in the idea that both technologists and civil society leaders come to the table with essential expertise: the fellows bring a wealth of technical know-how, while the host organizations bring a deep understanding of how technology broadly — and in some cases AI specifically — is impacting the communities they serve.
Benefits
- Mozilla Tech + Society Fellows will receive a stipend of $60,000 USD/year and have access to personal supplements, which are intended to support an individual’s wellbeing.
- Fellows will also receive access to separate funding to support their individual projects and collaboration with the host organization.
Eligibilities
- Experienced technologists, with a minimum of 3-5 years experience working in a technology-related capacity.
- Reside in or have work authorization in the country or region of the host organization. Note that organizations have location-specific parameters.
- Understand relevant cultural nuance and context of the host country. Note that organisms may have language-specific parameters.
- Be strategically-minded and collaborative-oriented, with experience in identifying problems and solutions at the intersection of technology and social justice issues.
- Be able to carry out fellowship work to an extent generally consistent with full-time commitment . Engagement length of the fellowship is a minimum of 1.5 years and a maximum of 2 years.
- Have working fluency in English.
Application Process
The application for a Mozilla Fellowship is a two-part process: 1) registration and 2) full application. The registration form must be submitted in Fluxx by January 22 in order to be able to submit a full application.
- Registration: To begin the application process, complete the Mozilla Fellows 2024-2026 Registration Form by 22 January 2024 . Within two business days of submitting your registration, you will receive an email from @fluxx.io with instructions to set your password on Mozilla’s Fluxx portal.
The answers you provide on your registration form will become a part of your full application, and will be assessed by reviewers. Please provide accurate and complete responses to the questions on the registration form.
- Full application: To complete the full application, log in to your account on https://mozilla.fluxx.io . A full application form will be available in the “Drafts” section of the portal. Once you submit your application, you will receive a confirmation email within two business days. If you have not received a confirmation email within two business days please email [email protected] . The deadline for submission of full applications is February 5, 2024.
As part of the application process, please be prepared to share:
- A description of an issue at the intersection of technology and social justice in your identified potential host organization that the fellowship would be used as a platform to address;
- Some key results you think can achieve during the fellowship;
- Suggestions for host organization alignment;
- A summary of a potential personal project you would like to spend a portion of your fellowship time working on and the issue it aims to address;
- A history of your professional experience.
Application Deadline: January 22, 2024
Application ClosedOfficial link
