Plugging in on Policy
When Mozilla rolled out a new fellowship focused on tech policy this past June, the goal was to gather some of the world's top policymakers in tech to continue advancing the important initiatives they were working on in government as fellows with Mozilla.
We rounded up 10 fellows from the U.S., Brazil, India, and Kenya as part of the initial cohort. Fellows are spending the year keeping the Internet open and free both by furthering the crucial work they had already been leading, and by finding new ways to add to forward-thinking policy efforts.
Fellows are urging policymakers to keep net neutrality in the United States and to adopt it in India, they're promoting data privacy and security in East Africa and Brazil, and they're encouraging increased access to high-quality broadband in vulnerable communities in rural, urban, and tribal areas everywhere. The fellows have all described their work in depth on Mozilla's network blog:
- Alan Davidson is advancing policies and practices to support building the field of public interest technologists - the next generation of leaders with expertise in technology and public policy who we need to guide our society through coming challenges such as encryption, autonomous vehicles, blockchain, cybersecurity, and more.
- Amina Fazlullah is exploring policies that will help lower the cost of broadband access, support broad adoption, ensure that applications are developed with the most vulnerable users in mind, promoting a fair and open Internet, and identifying and highlighting the good work of digital inclusion organizations around the world.
- Camille Fischer worked on policies that support legal protections for privacy rights in the U.S. Camille completed her fellowship and recently joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation as a fellow working on free speech and government transparency.
- Caroline Holland is working to promote competition for a healthy Internet to make sure consumers have access to affordable and competitive high speed broadband and equal access to the lawful content they desire.
- Amba Kak is moving policies forward on net neutrality, zero rating and the open Internet in India, including supporting the country's recent commitment to comprehensive net-neutrality protection.
- In East Africa, Linet Kwamboka is working to promote policies that support data protection and privacy as well as data literacy for the public.
- Terah Lyons explored the global role of stakeholders from public, private, civil society, and academic stakeholder communities on AI policy to address issues related to ethics, accountability, the future of work, and safety and control. Terah recently completed her fellowship and joined the Partnership on AI as its first Executive Director.
-From Brazil, Marilia Monteiro is working to analyze tech policy issues from a consumer protection perspective to ensure that policy makers are balancing consumer interests with technology and innovation advances.
- Jason Schultz is exploring AI's impact on open technologies including the need for new methods both to measure the negative impacts of AI closure and to adapt alternatives in meaningful technological, economic, and social ways.
- Gigi Sohn is continuing her nearly 30-year fight for fast, fair, and open networks, including working to keep net neutrality in the U.S.
The Tech Policy Fellows gathered at MozFest, Mozilla's annual festival for the open Internet movement, in October. They led workshops, roundtables, and panels, and - of course - met Foxy.
Mozilla Tech Policy Fellow Amina Fazlullah meets Foxy at MozFest.
Fellows are also contributing to the upcoming 2018 version of the Internet Health Report (you can get involved with that project, too!) and they are working closely with a dedicated Advisory Board, made up of seven top experts and supporters of a free and open Internet located in six different countries.
Mozilla will begin recruiting for a new cohort of fellows in 2018 - keep an eye out for our announcement and help us bring together even more amazing tech policy leaders to advance this crucial work.
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