Increasing Momentum Around Tech Policy

Strong government policies and leadership are key to making the Internet a global public resource that is open and accessible to all.

To advance this work from the front lines, some of the world's experts on these issues joined government service. These dedicated public servants have made major progress in recent years on issues like net neutrality, open data and the digital economy.

But as governments transition and government leaders move on, we risk losing momentum or even backsliding on progress made. To sustain that momentum and invest in those leaders, today the Mozilla Foundation officially launches a new Tech Policy Fellowship. The program is designed to give individuals with deep expertise in government and Internet policy the support and structure they need to continue their Internet health work.

The fellows, who hail from around the globe, will spend the next year working independently on a range of tech policy issues. They will collaborate closely with Mozilla's policy and advocacy teams, as well as the broader Mozilla network and other key organizations in tech policy. Each fellow will bring their expertise to important topics currently at issue in the United States and around the world.

For example:

Fellow Gigi Sohn brings nearly 30 years of experience, most recently at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), dedicated to defending and preserving fundamental competition and innovation policies for broadband Internet access. At a time when we are moving closer to a closed Internet in the United States, her expertise is more valuable than ever.

Fellow Alan Davidson will draw on his extensive professional history working to advance a free and open digital economy to support his work on education and advocacy strategies to combat Internet policy risks.

With the wave of data collection and use fast growing in government and the private sector, fellowLinet Kwamboka will analyze East African government practices for the collection, handling and publishing of data. She will develop contextual best practices for data governance and management.

Meet the initial cohort of the Tech Policy Fellows here and below, and keep an eye on the Tech Policy Fellowship website for ways to collaborate in this work.

Alan Davidson |@abdavdson

Alan will work to produce a census of major Internet policy risks and will engage in advocacy and educational strategy to minimize those risks. Alan is also a Fellow at New America in Washington, D.C. Until January 2017, he served as the first Director of Digital Economy at the U.S. Department of Commerce and a Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Commerce. Prior to joining the department, Davidson was the director of the Open Technology Institute at New America. Earlier, Davidson opened Google's Washington policy office in 2005 and led the company's public policy and government relations efforts in North and South America. He was previously Associate Director of the Center for Democracy and Technology. Alan has a bachelor's degree in mathematics and computer science and a master's degree in technology and policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is a graduate of Yale Law School.

Credit: New America

Amina Fazlullah

Amina Fazlullah will work to promote policies that support broadband connectivity in rural and vulnerable communities in the United States. Amina joins the fellowship from her most recent role as Policy Advisor to the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, where she led efforts to develop policies that support broadband deployment, digital inclusion, and digital equity efforts across the United States. Amina has worked on a broad range of Internet policy issues including Universal Service, consumer protection, antitrust, net neutrality, spectrum policy and children's online privacy. She has testified before Congress, the Federal Communications Commission, the Department of Commerce and Federal Trade Commission. Amina was formerly the Benton Foundation's Director of Policy in Washington, D.C., where she worked to further government policies to address communication needs of vulnerable communities. Before that, Amina worked with the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, for the Honorable Chief Judge James M. Rosenbaum of the U.S. District Court of Minnesota and at the Federal Communications Commission. She is graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School and Pennsylvania State University.

Camille Fischer|@camfisch

Camille will be working to promote individual rights to privacy, security and free speech on the Internet. In the last year of the Obama Administration, Camille led the National Economic Council's approach to consumers' economic and civil rights on the Internet and in emerging technologies. She represented consumers' voices in discussions with other federal agencies regarding law enforcement access to data, including encryption and international law enforcement agreements. She has run commercial privacy and security campaigns, like the BuySecure Initiative to increase consumers' financial security, and also worked to promote an economic voice within national security policy and to advocate for due process protections within surveillance and digital access reform. Before entering the government as a Presidential Management Fellow, Camille graduated from Georgetown University Law Center where she wrote state legislation for the privacy-protective commercial use of facial recognition technology. Camille is also an amateur photographer in D.C.

Caroline Holland

Caroline will be working to to promote a healthy internet by exploring current competition issues related to the Internet ecosystem. Caroline served most recently as Chief Counsel for Competition Policy and Intergovernmental Relations at the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division. In that role, she was involved in several high-profile matters while overseeing the Division's competition policy and advocacy efforts, interagency policy initiatives, and congressional relations. Caroline previously served as Chief Counsel and Staff Director of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee where she advised the committee chairmen on a wide variety of competition issues related to telecommunications, technology and intellectual property. Before taking on this role, she was a counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee and an attorney in private practice focusing on public policy and regulatory work. Caroline holds a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and a B.A. in Public Policy from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. Between college and law school, Caroline served in the Antitrust Division as an honors paralegal and as Clerk of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee.

Linet Kwamboka|@linetdata

Linet will work on understanding the policies that guide data collection and dissemination in East Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda). Through this, she aims to publish policy recommendations on existing policies, proposed policy amendments and a report outlining her findings. Linet is the Founder and CEO of DataScience LTD, which builds information systems to generate and use data to discover intelligent insights about people, products and services for resource allocation and decision making. She was previously the Kenya Open Data Initiative Project Coordinator for the Government of Kenya at the Kenya ICT Authority. Linet is also a director of the World Data Lab-Africa, working to make data personal, tangible and actionable to help citizens make better informed choices about their lives. She also consults with the UNDP in the Strengthening Electoral Processes in Kenya Project, offering support to the Independent Electoral Boundaries Commission in information systems and technology. She has worked at the World Bank as a GIS and Technology Consultant and was a Software Engineering Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. Her background is in computer science, data analysis and Geographical Information Systems. Linet is a recognized unsung hero by the American Embassy in Kenya in her efforts to encourage more women into technology and computing, has been a finalist in the Bloomberg award of global open data champions and is a member of the Open Data Institute Global Open Data Leaders' Network.

Terah Lyons|@terahlyons

Terah will work on advancing policy and governance around the future of machine intelligence, with a specific focus on coordination in international governance of AI. Her work targets questions related to the responsible development and deployment of AI and machine learning, including how society can minimize the risks of AI while maximizing its benefits, and what AI development and advanced automation means for humankind across cultural and political boundaries. Terah is a former Policy Advisor to the U.S. Chief Technology Officer in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). She most recently led a policy portfolio in the Obama Administration focused on machine intelligence, including AI, robotics, and intelligent transportation systems. In her work at OSTP, Terah helped establish and direct the White House Future of Artificial Intelligence Initiative, oversaw robotics policy and regulatory matters, led the Administration's work from the White House on civil and commercial unmanned aircraft systems/drone integration into the U.S. airspace system, and advised on Federal automated vehicles policy. She also advised on issues related to diversity and inclusion in the technology industry and entrepreneurial ecosystem. Prior to her work at the White House, Terah was a Fellow with the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences based in Cape Town, South Africa. She is a graduate of Harvard University, where she currently sits on the Board of Directors of the Harvard Alumni Association.

Marilia Monteiro

Marilia will be analyzing consumer protection and competition policy to contribute to the development of sustainable public policies and innovation. From 2013-15, she was Policy Manager at the Brazilian Ministry of Justice's Consumer Office coordinating public policies for the consumer protection in digital markets and law enforcement actions targeting ISP and Internet application. She has researched the intersection between innovation technologies and society in different areas: current democratic innovations in Latin America regarding e-participation at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin fi1/4r Sozialforschung and the development of public policies on health privacy and data protection at the "Privacy Brazil" project with the Internet Lab in partnership with Ford Foundation in Brazil. She is a board member at Coding Rights, a Brazilian-born, women-led, think-and-do tank and active in Internet Governance fora. Marilia holds a Master in Public Policy from the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin focusing on policy analysis, a bachelor in Law from Fundaiio Getulio Vargas School of Law in Rio de Janeiro and specialises in digital rights.

Jason Schultz|@lawgeek

Jason will analyze the impacts and effects of new technologies such as artificial intelligence/machine learning and the Internet of Things through the lenses of consumer protection, civil liberties, innovation, and competition. His research aims to help policymakers navigate these important legal concerns while still allowing for open innovation and for competition to thrive. Jason is a Professor of Clinical Law, Director of NYU's Technology Law & Policy Clinic, and Co-Director of the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy. His clinical projects, research, and writing primarily focus on the ongoing struggles to balance traditional areas of law such as intellectual property, consumer protection, and privacy with the public interest in free expression, access to knowledge, civil rights, and innovation in light of new technologies and the challenges they pose. During the 2016-2017 academic year, Jason was on leave at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where he served as Senior Advisor on Innovation and Intellectual Property to former U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith. With Aaron Perzanowski, he is the author of The End of Ownership: Personal Property in the Digital Economy (MIT Press 2016), which argues for retaining consumer property rights in a marketplace that increasingly threatens them. Prior to joining NYU, Jason was an Assistant Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at the UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall). Before joining Boalt Hall, he was a Senior Staff Attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and before that practiced intellectual property law at the firm of Fish & Richardson, PC. He also served as a clerk to the Honorable D. Lowell Jensen of the Northern District of California. He is a member of the American Law Institute.

Gigi Sohn|@gigibsohn

Gigi will be working to promote an open Internet in the United States. She is one of the nation's leading public advocates for open, affordable, and democratic communications networks. Gigi is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy and an Open Society Foundations Leadership in Government Fellow. For nearly 30 years, Gigi has worked across the United States to defend and preserve the fundamental competition and innovation policies that have made broadband Internet access more ubiquitous, competitive, affordable, open, and protective of user privacy. Most recently, Gigi was Counselor to the former Chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, Tom Wheeler, who she advised on a wide range of Internet, telecommunications and media issues. Gigi was named by the Daily Dot in 2015 as one of the "Heroes Who Saved the Internet" in recognition of her role in the FCC's adoption of the strongest-ever net neutrality rules. Gigi co-founded and served as CEO of Public Knowledge, the leading communications policy advocacy organization. She was previously a Project Specialist in the Ford Foundation's Media, Arts and Culture unit and Executive Director of the Media Access Project, the first public interest law firm in the communications space. Gigi holds a B.S. in Broadcasting and Film, Summa Cum Laude, from the Boston University College of Communication and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Cori Zarek|@corizarek

Cori is the Senior Fellow leading the Tech Policy Fellows team and serving as a liaison with the Mozilla Foundation. Her work as a fellow will focus on the intersection of tech policy and transparency. Before joining Mozilla, Cori was Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer at the White House where she led the team's work to build a more digital, open, and collaborative government. Cori also coordinated U.S. involvement with the global Open Government Partnership, a 75-country initiative driving greater transparency and accountability around the world. Previously, she was an attorney at the U.S. National Archives, working on open government and freedom of information policy. Before joining the U.S. government, Cori was the Freedom of Information Director at The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press where she assisted journalists with legal issues, and she also practiced for a Washington law firm. Cori received her B.A. from the University of Iowa where she was editor of the student-run newspaper, The Daily Iowan. Cori also received her J.D. from the University of Iowa where she wrote for the Iowa Law ReviewandThe Des Moines Register.She was inducted into the Freedom of Information Hall of Fame in 2016. Cori is also the President of the D.C. Open Government Coalition and teaches a media law class at American University.

The post Increasing Momentum Around Tech Policy appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.