Defining a "Mozilla Fellow"

The Mozilla Fellowship programs grow, support and cultivate our network of community leaders advancing the free and open web. The Fellows catalyze change in communities we care about (e.g., news, research, advocacy, software developement), supported programmatically (and in many cases, financially) by Mozilla. The Fellowships are cohort-based, immersive leadership development opportunities to amplify the skills and work of the community.

Who is a Mozilla Fellowship for?

• Someone doing interesting, exciting things on the web who wants to explore and contribute to communities of practice we care about.
• Someone who is invested in the future of the open web and wants to collaborate and work in the open to support their community of practice and the web overall.
• Someone who is eager to document their work and processes and share it within their community of practice and beyond. (Or “pay it forward”.)

What’s the opportunity?

• Work on challenging, interesting projects that have impact.
• Explore a community of practice and deepen your skills by working with this community.
• Collaborate with like-minded people in your community of practice, Mozilla, and beyond.
• Share the research, code, and insights from your fellowship to support the work of your community on the open web.
• Develop your role as a leader within this community and create strong networks to continue your work.

Working to Further Web Literacy

When we talk about “Web Literacy”, we are looking for people who in one way or another are helping others to read, write and participate on the web. That could be teaching and mentoring others on how to share and make use of data, an open source project in the newsroom that helps journalists, or a digital campaign to help your local community understand their rights on the web. It’s a big umbrella which takes on different forms depending on the community – be it youth and makers, researchers, activists, or technologists.

As we continue this work, we will be working to further link the Fellowship work with the evolving Mozilla Learning plan to further universal web literacy. That work has already begun, and you can track its progress here.