Mozilla, a global non-profit organization working towards enhancing the internet experience, organized a debate in New Delhi regarding the openness of the internet and its accessibility.
The discussion was organized by Mozilla in partnership with legal services organisation SFLC.in. It has also announced “Equal Rating Innovation Challenge”, which is open until January 6, 2017.
The challenge aims to support promising solutions through expert mentorship and $250,000 (approx. Rs. 1.7 crores) funding. Jochai Ben-Avie, Senior Global Policy Manager at Mozilla, said,
Bringing the Internet to all people, especially the poor, is one of the greatest challenges of our time and future innovations to connect the unconnected must adhere to the tenets of Equal Rating.
Mozilla’s ‘Equal Rating Innovation Challenge’ is designed to catalyse new thinking and innovation in providing affordable access and cultivating digital literacy.
Mahesh Murthy, founder of Pinstorm and co-founder of Seedfund called the Equal Rating Innovation Challenge a real “game changer.” He added that they are expecting the companies to come up with solutions to offer free net access, without any restrictions. He further said that the user should have freedom to visit any website he/she chooses. With this challenge, he is expecting more than 300 million new Indian users to come online.
Mishi Choudhary, Executive Director at SFLC.in, said,
Connecting the unconnected while propagating the values of an open Internet is what we all must work for. Mozilla’s challenge is the correct way to solve the problem of access. I hope for more such initiatives to be rolled out and we can address the challenge innovatively to educate every being on earth through an open Internet.
As of the funding to support the best solution, the amount of $250,000 will be split into three categories — best overall(based on scalability), best overall runner-up and most novel solution(based on an experiment with potential high reward). Five semi-finalists will be selected from the applicants and all of them will get intensive mentorship to hone the concept. While three of them will win any of the above three awards, the remaining two will get $10,000 each to develop the solution.
Five semi-finalists will be selected from the applicants and all of them will get intensive mentorship to hone the concept. While three of them will win any of the above three awards, the remaining two will get $10,000 each to develop the solution.
Mozilla has launched the Equal Rating Innovation Challenge as a way to accelerate innovation in connecting the unconnected. Its mission is to grow the community of problem-solvers tackling this critical issue and ultimately solve this challenge.
