Mozilla launches Equal Rating Innovation Challenge with $250,000 prize

The competition invites contributions on ways to provide unfettered access to the open Internet for anyone across the globe. As part of its initiative, it 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. It also includes expert mentorship to spark new ways to connect everyone to the Internet.

“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,” said Mozilla’s chief innovation officer, Katharina Borchert. “This challenge is designed to spur innovations to bring the members of the Next Billion online. It 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.”

Mozilla has launched www.equalrating.com, a website offering educational content and background information to support the challenge. In the coming weeks, it will also stream a series of webinars stream to further inform potential applicants about the challenge details.

“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,” concludes Borchert.

The first round of selections will be announced by mid-January 2017. Selected finalists will receive mentorship for their projects before they demonstrate their ideas in March 2017. Final winners will be announced by end of March 2017. Interested innovators can submit their ideas and contact moc.allizom@gnitarlauqe for further details.