The Mozilla Technology Fund (MTF) supports open source technologists whose work furthers promising approaches to solving pressing internet health issues.
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When is the Application Deadline:
5th October 2023 at 12pm EST/ 4pm GMT.
Tell Me About Mozilla Technology Fund:
The Mozilla Technology Fund (MTF) is a grantmaking program which funds technical projects in specific areas that relate to internet health. The Mozilla Technology Fund’s first call for proposals is for projects which can expose elements of how artificial intelligence (AI) systems work, in order to reduce bias in and increase the transparency of AI systems. We hope to fund projects which can empower watchdogs (including technologists and journalists) to hold the designers of AI systems accountable and to give them tools to reduce bias and increase transparency.
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For years, bias has been shown to be one of the major risks of operating AI systems at scale. Systemic bias and bias which exists in training data results in real-world harms for people whose access to economic opportunity, social interaction, education and banking is increasingly mediated by these systems. To create more transparent artificial intelligence systems, AI transparency and documentation best practices need to be developed as a means to help unlock accountability, agency, and fairness.
Through the MTF: Bias and Transparency in AI Awards, we will provide awards of up to $50,000 USD each to open source technology projects which can make artificial intelligence systems more trustworthy, by addressing bias and/or increasing transparency and accountability. We imagine these projects might demystify the inner workings of existing AI systems and make the design of their algorithms transparent, by improving the explainability, interpretability and predictability of their outputs. The projects we aim to fund will provide the tools for current AI systems to better serve the interests of people, and/or imagine new ways of building and training AI systems in the future. Click here to learn more about what we mean by “Trustworthy AI”. Our goal is to provide projects in the MTF: Bias and Transparency cohort with the resources needed to unlock their full potential and to make them more sustainable in the long term.
This year we’re asking: Is there a role AI systems can play in addressing topics like environmental degradation, climate change, indigenous justice, food justice, and energy justice? Could AI technologies be a part of the solutions to these issues and not just a part of the problem? For this year’s call, we are particularly interested in projects which address the health, economic and social impacts of climate change on the Most Affected People and Areas (MAPA) — people of color, indigenous and traditional peoples, local communities, and specific ethnic-racial groups across the global south. Click here to learn more about the 2024 AI and Environmental Justice awards.
Awardees will be expected to join monthly cohort calls for the duration of their project (12 months, beginning in January 2022) in order to share their progress, ask questions and offer support to other project teams. Awardees will also have access to a senior Mozilla fellow focusing on openness (who will be an expert in building and maintaining open source technologies and communities), who will serve as mentor to members of the MTF cohort, as well as other Mozilla fellows with expertise in AI, transparency and bias. All MTF awardees past and present will have access to the MTF Slack Community for asynchronous discussion and updates.
What Type of Scholarship is this?
Grants
Who can apply for Mozilla Technology Fund?
We imagine that the Bias and Transparency in AI Awards will support a variety of software projects (including utilities and frameworks), data sets, tools and design concepts. We will not consider applications for policy or research projects (though software projects which leverage, support or amplify policy and research initiatives will be considered—for example, bias metrics and statistical analyses being turned into easy to use and interpret software implementations). Some example projects we can imagine:
- Projects that help expose elements of how AI systems in consumer technology products work, the bias that may be inherent in them and/or how to mitigate the bias in these systems
- Utilities that help developers understand and identify bias when building datasets and AI systems
- Components that allow developers to provide more transparency to users on the inner workings of AI systems
- Tools to help identify, understand and mitigate the bias inherent in publicly-available datasets
Applicants should:
- Have a product or working prototype in hand—projects which have not moved beyond the idea stage will not be considered
- Already have a core team in place to support the development of the project (this team might include software developers working in close collaboration with AI researchers, designers, product/project managers and subject matter experts)
- Embrace openness, transparency, and community stewardship as methodology
- Make their work available under an open-source license
How are Applicants Selected?
These awards are open to all applicants regardless of geographic location or institutional affiliation, except where legally prohibited. However, Mozilla is especially interested in receiving applications from members of the Global Majority or Global South; Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color; women, transgender, non-binary and/or gender-diverse applicants; migrant and diasporic communities; and/or persons coming from climate displaced/impacted communities, etc. We strongly encourage all such applicants to apply.
Applications will be accepted for a period of four weeks and will then be reviewed by a committee of experts, which will make final funding decisions and allocate awards.
How Many Scholarships will be Given?
Not specified
What is the Benefit of Mozilla Technology Fund?
Successful applications will be rewarded awards of up to $50,000 USD each out of a total pool of $300,000 USD.
How to Apply for Mozilla Technology Fund:
Submit your application by 5 October
Sign up to join the info session
Please review the Mozilla Technology Fund guidelines before submitting your application.
Visit Mozilla Technology Fund Webpage for Details
