Geoff Millener ”It’s about asking the people who do a job every day how that job should be done, how it could be changed, and where are the places in their communities, their profession, their classroom and schools, they can make a change.”
Charles Canario “The hardest challenge is making things accessible. It’s super easy to get caught up in technical terms and vast concepts. I want to make sure all people can understand what we’re saying.”
Randy MacDonald “Part of working openly was capturing ideas and putting them out there for feedback from a broader community — even from people that aren’t working or going to be working on your project.”
Barry Joseph “We've transformed and enhanced our youth’s identity as contributors to society and helped them connect their passions with learning — giving them increased foundations to more effectively plan a rewarding future for themselves.”
Babitha George "If I can’t see what information people are accessing about me, there’s a problem — not knowing what happens to that data is an even bigger problem."
Gina Tesoriero “It's challenging to find a balance — to structure and support the kids that need it, but also give them the freedom to fail and bring their own interests into things.”
Niberca (Gigi) Polo “In my work in academia, our meetings with Hive networks has helped me expand my research on e-learning, emerging virtual spaces, and digital equity and inclusive practices.”
Chris (Spike) Foote “I believe that we should be working to lower the barriers — to give more people the power to use and create the web.”
Anelda Van der Walt “The open internet is the thing that makes my job possible — that makes it possible for my company to exist.”
Fatma Guerfali “I'm a biologist doing bioinformatics work — without this kind of openness in science, I wouldn’t be able to do what I do.”
Baratang Miya “Media is one of the biggest influences on how girls define themselves. We want them to write and curate content for various distribution channels to inspire healthy conversations and honest perspectives.”
Tina Verbo “We're creating offline activities to teach communities about the web, so those without resources and access have opportunities to learn as well.”
Kim Wilkens “Our idea was to bring in a funhouse element so people can face their fears — to know that even if something is scary at first, it can be a lot of fun.”
Ani Martinez “There is always a challenge of creating opportunities for new audiences to participate meaningfully.”
Eva Constantaras “As awareness increases, so does media literacy, information literacy, data literacy, and the ability to understand and evaluate giant streams of information.”
Faith Zuma “I couldn’t have imagined balancing work with the Mozilla project. I'm proud of myself for making it a success — to see the project published for the work that we did.”
Christine Zhang “Mozilla has encouraged me to think about things in a different way — to think about how groups can match up, even if they haven't in the past or don't usually.”
Hillary Kolos “There's a huge disparity in the access teachers have to professional development around computers, the internet, and broadband.”
Steffania Paola “We are working with social movements and vulnerable groups — raising awareness about how the internet works, what the risks are, and the power of this tool to fight for more rights.”
Paul Oh “Hacking can seem like such a foreign and threatening term — so we facilitated a workshop which showed how the idea of hacking represents agency and the ability to repurpose, reimagine, and remix.”
Steffania Paola “Trabajamos con movimientos sociales y con los grupos más vulnerables — para aumentar la conciencia sobre cómo funciona el internet, cuáles son los riesgos, y del poder de esta herramienta para luchar por más derechos.”
Gus Hosein “Internet privacy has been a particular challenge in that the interest and awareness of it is at an all time high — but the grip on it is at an all time low.”
Brian Bot “The Working Open Workshop forced me to pay attention to adjacent disciplines and how they deal with the same problems we see in biomedical research.”
Su Adams “I started an afterschool computing club using the Mozilla curriculum and tools — it had a big impact on the kids.”
Ron Deibert “The internet is the repository of our knowledge and the means by which we exchange and share ideas — it has to be protected and preserved and shepherded.”
Trevor Timm “The ability to say what you want — and feel secure saying it — are the two most important aspects of a free and open internet.”
Rob Schaefer “It’s important to be OK with mistakes or negative results — to be OK with trying something different or new — to know that your successes are measured incrementally.”
Anna Krystalli “The greatest moral questions of our times are played out on the web and in the fight to keep it open.”
Christie Bahlai “During my fellowship I developed an open science and reproducible research course — my students' work was then highlighted in Science Magazine.”
Joe McNamee “Our Open Web Fellow is helping us bring practical understanding to the political debate.”
Ariam Mogos “We’re all well-connected — but our programs aren’t … We’re all facing the same challenge: what’s next for our youth beyond our organizations? How do we guide our participants to the next best learning experience?"
David Humphrey “I teach how to participate in collaborative projects. I set up a bike lane, so we’re on the same road as Mozilla, but we’re off to the side.”
Kylee Durant “It was really powerful to see somebody from Mozilla who didn't just think about a great idea — but how to actually turn that idea into action.”
Caitlin Stanton “We were 17… It was challenging to assert ourselves as two capable females in tech who wanted to organize a hackathon. When we reached out to potential sponsors they assumed we didn’t know what we were doing.”
Emily Long “Working with others is what really helps us grow as an organization. It gives us more projects and more room to experiment.”
Mmaki Jantjies “The Mozilla Women & Girls clubs have become a space of trust — people open up about challenges they face on a daily basis.”
Marc Lesser “Success is hearing young people say things like, ‘I always wanted to lead but now I know I can, and I better understand what my capabilities are.’ … the experience has impacted not only what a person can do, but also their perspective about what their potential is.”
Julian Stodd “The internet is a tool of mass connectivity — where the power of one-to-one connections is facilitated and can drive direct change.”
Willow Brugh "We might be able to build a different future, rather than the one we’re sleepwalking into."
Emily May "One of the opportunities for the open internet movement is to fully embrace combating online harassment."
Hera Hussain “No matter how dangerous it is for young women to be online, they still want to get online. Their social activities are there. Now there are so many things you can _only_ do online.”
Anthony Negron “You have an experience with an organization where you gel so perfectly that you start thinking about other ways to collaborate.”
Shreyas Kutty “Eventually, you reach a point where _you_ are that person who becomes the reason for someone else’s story.”