Mozilla has launched a contest which aims to spark new ways to connect everyone to the Internet. The global Equal Rating Innovation Challenge comes with $250 000 (R3.5 million) prize money and includes a mentorship programme.
"At Mozilla, we believe the Internet is most powerful when anyone - regardless of gender, income, or geography - can participate equally. However, the digital divide remains a clear and persistent reality," according to Mozilla's chief innovation officer, Katharina Borchert.
The Equal Rating Innovation Challenge invites contributions on ways to provide unfettered access to the open Internet for anyone across the globe. As part of its initiative, Mozilla is asking entrepreneurs, designers, researchers and innovators to propose creative and scalable ideas for connecting more people to the Internet, built on local knowledge and expertise.
"This challenge is designed to spur innovations for bringing the members of the next billion online. The Equal Rating Innovation Challenge is focused on identifying creative new solutions to connect the unconnected. These solutions may range from consumer products and novel mobile services, to new business models and infrastructure proposals," adds Borchert.
The prize money will be split into three categories: best overall winner and best overall runner-up (based on scalability) and most novel solution (based on experiment with a potential high reward).
Mozilla has launched its own Web site offering educational content and background information to support the challenge. In the coming weeks, Mozilla will also stream a series of webinars to further inform potential applicants.
"Connecting the unconnected is one of the greatest challenges of our time. No one organisation or effort can tackle it alone. We must come together and collaborate to build innovative and scalable ways to bring Internet access to the next billion ? and the other billions, as well," says Borchert.
Submissions are open from 1 November 2016 to 6 January 2017 and will be judged by a group of external experts. The first round of selections will be announced by mid-January. Selected finalists will receive mentorship for their projects before they demonstrate their ideas in March 2017. Final winners will be announced by the end of March 2017.
Mozilla has been an advocate for the Open Web for more than 15 years, and creates and promotes open standards that enable innovation and advance the Web as a platform for all. It says hundreds of millions of people worldwide use Mozilla Firefox to experience the Web on computers, tablets and mobile devices.
Share