The Ford-Mozilla Open Web Fellowship program is seeking host organizations: like-minded groups working on the front lines of internet health

Today, we’re launching the Ford-Mozilla Open Web Fellowship call for host organizations. If your organization is devoted to a healthy internet for all users, we encourage you to apply.

Now entering its fourth year, the Open Web Fellows program is part of a growing movement to build global leadership around public interest technology and open web advocacy. Backed by the Ford Foundation and Mozilla, the program partners emerging technologists (fellows) with civil society organizations (hosts) for a 10-month period of collaboration and creative work to support public awareness around online policy, to defend digital rights, and to champion internet freedom.

In the past four years, the fellowship has partnered with 21 host organizations around the globe, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, Derechos Digitales, European Digital Rights, Freedom of the Press Foundation and many more, across sectors and specialties, united by a shared goal to protect public interaction on the open web.

Says Ford Foundation’s Michael Brennan, who helps manage the fellowship program: “Technology suffuses every aspect of our lives, and the challenges and opportunities it presents for civil society and social justice are greater than ever. It’s very important that civil society organizations understand the technical landscape, and how developing technologies can serve the public interest.”

WHY TO APPLY

Organizations defending an open and accessible web are the backbone of our fellowship program. They socialize fellows to a global assortment of issues, policies, and technologies and inspire them with meaningful work that impacts how the internet grows and supports community globally.

The Fellowship sponsors fellows with a competitive stipend and suite of benefits such that they can comfortably contribute to and learn from their host organizations for their 10 month fellowship tenure. In turn, the host organizations mentor their fellows to tackle challenges to the open web: digital inclusion, online privacy and security, transparent policy, and human rights advocacy. You can read more about the fellows’ interests and skills via the 2015-2017 cohorts’ bios, or check out this video series featuring their profiles and passions.

A CALL FOR HOST ORGANIZATIONS

Effective immediately, any organization is welcome to apply to be a Ford-Mozilla Open Web Fellowship host. We are seeking applications from organizations that are passionate about preserving the open web as a global resource for all. Selected organizations have a reputation for influencing public policies that impact the internet and a strong interest in onboarding talented emerging technologists to the issues they advocate for and defend on a daily basis.

The application deadline is Friday, February 16th, 2018.

Have questions or concerns? Check this guide to applying, read through the program overview, or reach out by email to fellowships@mozillafoundation.org.

Apply today, and spread the word!