Apply Now: $250,000 Shuttleworth Foundation Fellowships for Open Innovation

Mark Shuttleworth, achieved great commercial success by building a commercial enterprise on Open Source software that was by its nature available for anyone to use and remix. (He was also the first South African in space!)

Although the Open Source model is well established for , it is not the case for , philanthropy, or social development. The default imposed on knowledge resources by copyright law is automatic lock down, with ideas generated and owned by ‘experts’. This default makes little sense if your agenda is social change.

Mark created and funds the Shuttleworth Foundation to understand whether, and how, applying the ethos, processes and licenses of the free and open source software world to areas outside of software can add value.

Shuttleworth Foundation Fellowships

The Shuttleworth Foundation offers fellowships to individuals to implement their innovative idea for social change at the intersection between technology, knowledge and learning, with openness being the key requirement.

Anyone can become a Shuttleworth Fellow and change the world with their open idea.

• You do not need any specific level of education.
• You do not need years of experience in the workplace
• You do not need to be from any specific geography or nationality.
• You do not need to have an organisation.
• You do not even need to be building software.

What you should have is a clear sense of how you can contribute to changing the world for the better. You should be able to articulate the problem, and your idea should offer a fresh approach to addressing that problem. You should be able to motivate why you are the best person to do this, and how this particular fellowship might help you do that.

We invest in individuals to change the world, now and in future. If you believe that is you, we could too.

Shuttleworth Foundation Fellowship Funding

The Shuttleworth Foundation Fellowship Program funding consists of two components for each Fellow – the fellowship grant and the co-investment project funding.

Fellowship Salary Grant

The fellowship grant covers the cost of the Fellow’s time for a year and is guaranteed to the fellow for that year. The grant amount varies and is determined by each Fellow’s salary equivalent outside of the fellowship.

Foundation Co-Investment Funding

The co-investment project funding is the most unique part of the Fellowship Program, as Fellows are rewarded for investing in their own ideas. An amount of $250,000 is set aside per Fellow per year as potential project funding.

This funding is unlocked through a light weight project pitch process and the Foundation tops up the Fellow’s own investment by adding at least 10 times as much funding from their project funding pool.

Apply Now: Deadline is November 3, 2019.

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