Announcing Panel of Judges for Mozilla’s Equal Rating Innovation Challenge

Mozilla is delighted to announce the esteemed judges for the Equal Rating Innovation Challenge

• Rocio Fonseca (Chile), Executive Director of Start-Up Chile
• Omobola Johnson (Nigeria), Honorary Chair of the Alliance for Affordable Internet and Partner of TLcom Capital LLP
• Nikhil Pahwa (India), Founder at MediaNama and Co-founder of savetheinternet.in
• Marlon Parker (South Africa), Founder of Reconstructed Living Labs

These four leaders will join Mitchell Baker (USA), Executive Chairwoman of Mozilla, on the judging panel for the Equal Rating Innovation Challenge. The judges will be bringing their wealth of industry experience and long-standing expertise from various positions in policy, entrepreneurship, and consulting in the private and public sector to assess the challenge submissions.

Mozilla seeks to find novel solutions to connect all people to the open Internet so they can realize the full potential of this globally shared resource. We’re both thrilled and proud to have gathered such a great roster of judges for the Innovation Challenge — it’s a testament to the global scope of the initiative. Each one of these leaders has already contributed in many ways to tackle the broader challenge of connecting the unconnected and it is an honour to have these global heavyweights in our panel.

The Equal Rating Innovation Challenge will support promising solutions through expert mentorship and funding of US$250,000 in prize monies split into three categories: Best Overall (with a key focus on scalability), Best Overall Runner-up, and Most Novel Solution (based on experimentation with a potential high reward).

The judges will score submissions according to the degree by which they meet the following attributes:

• 25pts: Scalability
• 20pts: Focus on user experience
• 15pts: Differentiation
• 10pts: Ability to be quickly deployed into the market (within 9–12 months)
• 10pts: Potential of the team
• 10pts: Community voting results

The deadline for submission is 6 January 2017. On 17 January, the judges will announce five semifinalists. Those semifinalists will be provided advice and mentorship from Mozilla experts in topics such as policy, business, engineering, and design to hone their solution. The semifinalists will take part in a Demo Day on 9 March 2017 in New York City to pitch their solutions to the judges. The public will then be invited to vote for their favorite solution online during a community voting period from 10–16 March, and the challenge winners will be announced on 29 March 2017.