Today marks the beginning of the fifth annual Mozilla Festival, one of the world’s biggest celebrations of the open web.
More than 1,600 participants from countries around the globe will gather at Ravensbourne in East London for a weekend of collaborating, building prototypes, designing innovative web literacy curricula and discussing how the ethos of the open web can contribute to the fields of science, journalism, advocacy and more.
Envisioning the future of the open web
In the next decade, billions more people will be coming online for the first time, largely thanks to the increased accessibility and affordability of mobile devices. There is a growing concern that the web of the future will have little to offer us except closed social networks and media consumption using apps, services and platforms created by a few big players. Additionally, troubling questions are emerging about how our online activity is monitored by governments and corporations. In the face of these threats, it’s crucial that we maintain our freedom, independence and agency as creators of the web, not just consumers.
Ambitious goals for MozFest 2014
MozFest brings together a passionate, global cohort to establish the open values that will govern the web of the future. Our aim this year is to develop tools and practices to keep the democratic principles of the Internet alive. We’ll be strategizing how to use both distributed organizing and skill-sharing to engage the global open web community. Web literacy – the critical skills necessary to read, write and participate on the the Internet – are central to this mission. We’ll address the challenges facing the Internet and explore how to spread web literacy on a global scale through hands-on, interactive sessions organized into 11 themed tracks.
Inspiring keynote speakers
While the motto of MozFest is Less Yack, More Hack, participants will be treated to some engaging keynote speakers including Baroness Beeban Kidron, Mary Moloney from CoderDojo, Mark Surman, Executive Director of the Mozilla Foundation, and Mitchell Baker, Executive Chairwoman of Mozilla.
There are options for remote participation for those who are unable to attend the event in person.
