September 2014 fellowship intake

by SF Team, 26 August 2014

The Foundation prefers to take its funding off the beaten track so to speak. We look for individuals and ideas that are not yet accepted in the mainstream, that challenge the status quo and bring a different perspective to addressing social challenges. We choose to support makers rather than consumers. The new Fellows do just that.

We had submissions from all over the world, exploring areas of science, education, culture, health, privacy and many many more. We spoke to people working on issues from personal safety to universal access to knowledge, from designing open hardware to alleviating poverty. All of the applications showed passion and personal commitment. We continue to be impressed.

We were drawn to initiatives that are at the early stages of development and not yet widely funded, to help unlock innovation and bring new ideas to the forefront. Out of all of these we chose three we believe have an interesting idea with a novel application, a realistic view of what they can achieve and the skills set to implement it.

On 1 September we welcome:

• Peter Bloom - Rhizomatica (Telecommunications)

• Seamus Kraft - The Open Gov Foundation (Open Government)

• Sean Bonner - Safecast (Citizen Science)

to the Fellowship program.

Their work builds on some of the investments we have made in the past and compliment current investments working towards the future.

We are also pleased to have offered current Fellows Daniel Lombraña González (Citizen Science) and Esra’a Al Shafei (Access to Information) another year of fellowship. Their work on Crowdcrafting and CrowdVoice respectively have involved citizens in actively participating in science and tracking voices of dissent. We believe they will inspire even greater understanding and engagement over the next year.

We look forward to working and learning with each of them.