Gigabit Cities at MozFest
High-speed Internet will be the future. Delivered over fiber-optic cables and travelling at one gigabit per second, this next stage of the Internet will change how we work, communicate, relax, learn, and behave. We’re working to shape that future by bringing in new voices that are often overshadowed.
“It’s important that this technology is inclusive and participatory,” said Lindsey Frost, who directs Mozilla Foundation’s collaboration with the National Science Foundation (NSF), including the Gigabit Community Fund.
The Gigabit Community Fund supports pilots of gigabit technologies and associated curricula in five American cities: Chattanooga, Austin, Eugene, Kansas City, and Lafayette. These pilots are designed to engage educators, students, and other non-technologist innovators in creating and beta testing emerging technologies, such as virtual reality, 4K streaming, and big data computation. By increasing participation in shaping these technologies, the Gigabit Fund aims to generate gigabit technologies that are more relevant and responsive to end users and to build a healthier future Internet for all.

Support from the NSF has expanded this year, with supplemental funding recently granted to bring two people from each of the five Gigabit Community Fund cities to MozFest 2017. MozFest is an opportunity to either further their work or deepen collaborations, depending on what stage of development their project is in.
The goal of these ten MozFest stipends is to support projects that will ensure that high-speed Internet is “relevant and responsive,” said Lindsey. The Gigabit team will look through their portfolio of 44 already-funded projects, all in various levels of ideation, looking for ones most relevant to Internet health and the spirit of collaboration. Recipients will be announced by September 6.
For communities like these five Mozilla Gigabit cities, “it’s rare to have local projects put on such a global stage and to have such a small community get recognition like this,” said Lindsey. A MozFest veteran, Lindsey has noticed a “two way street” of learning: participants from lesser known places, which may also have less resources for tech innovation, find inspiration to then bring back home to test. Additionally, these same participants have a different perspective than the average coder, sharing new ideas that might not occur to someone from Berlin or Shanghai.
Robert Friedman, one of the founders of Gigabit Hive in Austin, Texas, already funded the MozFest 2017 attendance of one of his local participants, Sarah Morris, through the Internet Health Prize awarded by a panel of judges at a local ATX pitch competition this past June.
Robert refers to Sarah Morris as a “UT Austin Librarian extraordinaire,” who took Mozilla’s open source resources to then launch a teaching kit that helps youth overcome the rise in fake news with web literacy. Earlier this month, Mozilla Foundation launched a specialized project called the Mozilla Internet Trust Initiative (MITI), of which Sarah’s teaching kit, Mission: Information is already a part.
Learn more about the Mozilla Gigabit Community Fund here.

