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Mozilla and its partners are providing $2,225,000 in funding for college and university curricula that reimagine computing education

Quoting from Mozilla's October 30th, 2023 press release. Press Release

Today, Mozilla is announcing its newest Responsible Computing Challenge awardees in the U.S. — 15 curricula that ensure the next generation of digital builders create technology in the public’s interest.

These courses, faculty, and practitioners will blend traditional computing education with the Humanities, Library and Information Science, and Social Sciences to reimagine how computer science is taught. Awardees will explore topics like biased data sets, AI ethics, accessible computing, and more.

RCC is a joint initiative between Mozilla, Omidyar Network, Schmidt Futures, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, Mellon Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and USAID. Awards for this newest cohort total $2,225,000, and winners were selected by a panel of four judges with expertise in the fields of computer science, community development, and education. Six of the 15 institutions are Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISI), Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), or Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI).

Says Dr. Ziyaad Bhorat, RCC Fellow who will work alongside this cohort: “AI and other computing technologies have an outsized impact on our lives, powering everything from banking to public services to law enforcement. As a result, we desperately need trustworthy AI systems — and responsible technologists who build them. These new awardees will help make this a reality.”

AI and other computing technologies have an outsized impact on our lives, powering everything from banking to public services to law enforcement. As a result, we desperately need trustworthy AI systems — and responsible technologists who build them.

DR. ZIYAAD BHORAT, RCC FELLOW

Mozilla welcomed its new U.S. cohort at a dedicated RCC summit in October this year, hosted by Harvard University’s Embedded EthiCS team in Cambridge, MA. Alison Simmons and Barbara Grosz of Embedded EthiCS were previous awardees in the Challenge.

This new cohort will join more than a dozen other RCC awardees in the U.S., Kenya and, soon, India. In a span of five years, RCC has awarded a total of $3.5 million to supporting the conceptualization, piloting, and scaling of ethics curricula in computer science training.

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