Deadline: 13-Mar-22
The Open Technology Fund (OTF) has announced an open call for the Information Controls Fellowship Program (ICFP) to cultivate research, output, and creative collaboration on topics related to repressive Internet censorship and surveillance.
ICFP fellows have experience in fields such as computer science, engineering, information security research, software development, social sciences, law, and data visualization, among others. Information controls is a cross-disciplinary field, so applications are open to people from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines and can include students and junior to mid-career practitioners.
Goals
The goal is to support efforts that aim to advance Internet freedom in the world’s most repressive environments. Ideally, this means they support individuals who are:
- Working on projects that will directly benefit those living in the world’s most oppressive censorship and surveillance environments; with repressive internet controls.
- Located in or have direct experience with communities in the Global South;
- Come from or have direct experience with repressive censorship and surveillance environments;
- Come from or have direct experience with underrepresented and/or targeted minority groups, including those with a focus on human rights, LGBT, journalism, media, or activism.
Focus Areas
- Development and refinement of tools and techniques to continuously monitor Internet interference on a global scale
- Investigation of information controls, security, and privacy in popular applications such as search engines, social media platforms, and instant messaging applications
- Leveraging open data to analyze the types of information controls being carried out and what they are targeting
- Testing creative methods and new protocols for censorship circumvention and analyzing network interference measures including all forms of Internet filtering.
- Examination of the impact of Internet censorship and use of circumvention tools
- Experimental techniques to limit pro-government manipulation of online discussions
- Researching emerging surveillance patterns and analysis of targeted digital threats against civil society organizations, such as denial of service attacks, social engineering and phishing attacks such as malware
- Studying the roles of machine learning and artificial intelligence in digital surveillance practices in repressive environments
- Investigating how the traits of quantum computing implicate the realm of Internet freedom and exploring opportunities to employ this leap in computing power to evade censorship.
- Other novel ideas and approaches relating to the study of global and regional information controls
Benefits
- Three, six, nine or twelve month fellowships available
- Usually offered to postdoctoral, doctoral students, and experienced researchers with demonstrated ability and expertise
- Monthly stipend of $5,000 USD
- Travel stipend of $1,250 to $5,000 USD, depending on the fellowship length
- Equipment stipend of $1,250 to $5,000 USD, depending on the fellowship length
- OTF fellowship contracts are 3, 6, 9 or 12 months in duration.
Eligibility Criteria
- Individuals of all ages irrespective of nationality, residency, creed, gender, or other factors, with the exception that OTF is not able to support applicants within countries that the United States has trade restrictions or export sanctions as determined by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
- Individuals who demonstrate skill and ability to assist in efforts to overcome information controls.
- Individuals who demonstrate a desire to grow their knowledge and skills through a collaborative, cross-discipline approach.
- Individuals who demonstrate a commitment to reach audiences outside the research community.
For more information, visit https://www.opentech.fund/funds/icfp/