We invest in people who have a strong vision and dare to be different!

2018

YEAR IN REVIEW

2018 spurred a heightened sense of time and place at the Foundation. It has been 10 years since we launched the current fellowship model and we are starting to see the cumulative impact the programme has had. Looking at the present social and economic context, we asked what our future intervention(s) should look like to meet evolving challenges.

This year we were thrilled to have worked with Honorary Stewards Sunil Abraham and Shari Steele to select 3 new Fellows: Jenny and Karla (March intake), and Andrew (September intake). Their work is already at the periphery and pushing the boundaries outwards on our thematic interests, by taking us from open access to the biological commons, from open as a tool to crypto currencies as a means, and from open hardware to distributed manufacturing.

We also now have 3 intakes of Fellows who have completed their fellowship 5 years or more ago. In 2017 we started to reflect on the impact of the fellowship on them, their impact on the world, and their cumulative impact as fellow Fellows. We specifically wanted to know what contribution, if any, our funding has made towards building the more equitable future we imagine.

The use of open educational resources in the classroom is becoming more common every year, at every education level and across many education systems.

In Intellectual Property Rights a growing network of funders require open access publishing for research and/or open licences for other output.

Access to ubiquitous, affordable telecommunication technologies continues to grow worldwide, including the now self-sustaining Rhizomatica, a community owned and operated mobile phone network in Mexico, being replicated elsewhere in Latin America, which we expanded on in our telecoms journey

In each of the thematic areas we have supported, we have seen a substantial shift. Shuttleworth Fellows have and continue to make a positive, constructive contribution well beyond their active fellowship. And for each of these Fellows this fellowship has made a substantial difference in their ability to do so.

While these areas no longer need our direct contribution - other, often better placed, funders and institutions are now driving continued positive change at scale - investing in individuals working at the experimental edge of emerging issues is still the best use of our available resources.

This realisation lead us to Fellowship Forward. The future is built by people. People who see further than those around them, who experience the world slightly differently, and who understand that they can help shape this world, for good or bad. For the forces for good to succeed, in any field, they need support to strengthen their ability to create the change they wish to make, and they need time, now and into the future, for their efforts to bear fruit as a contribution to change.

Where this past year was one of introspection, the next one will be about looking outward, expanding our exploration of themes and partnering beyond our current sphere. We look forward to learning a great deal and welcoming an engaging new wave of Fellows in September 2019.

Year in

THINKING

Our year in thinking reflects the pause we took for introspection and the re-commitment we made to articulating our approach to supporting social change.

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Johnny West & OpenOil: Refining the Extractive Industry

His success is not just good news for oil-producing developing nations and their citizens, but also for openness, transparency and the balance of power. In an industry hidden behind a veil of secrecy, smoke and mirrors, Johnny and the OpenOil team use and translate existing information to increase awareness of...... >>

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Esra'a Al Shafei & CrowdVoice: Amplifying the Unheard

As a Bahraini civil rights activist, she was our first Fellow from the Middle East, giving the Foundation an opportunity to explore the potential of open through a different lens. And the overall theme of her Fellowship - giving prominence to the important voices of dissent in regions where human...... >>

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Daniel Lombraña González: Human Stories in Citizen Science

But most importantly, he has broken citizen science free from its box. Once the preserve of hard research, Daniel has taken a crowbar to open up crowdsourcing and made it accessible for a range of diverse people and fields, from researchers through to volunteer citizen scientists. The story of PYBOSSA,...... >>

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Steve Song & Village Telco: A Foundation in Telecoms

Steve’s project developed into the Village Telco initiative, using open source software and low cost wireless mesh technology to build affordable community telephone networks, without the need for mobile phone towers or landlines. Village Telco remained an ongoing commercial concern until 2017, but our investment in Steve continues to provide...... >>

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Sean Bonner: The Seismic Necessity of Safecast

Born 18 months earlier as a reaction to the multiple meltdowns of a nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Safecast has made significant progress in enabling people to gather and view reliable, verified environmental information on a highly localised level. Over the last few years, Safecast has collected the largest ever...... >>

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Rory Aronson: Cultivating FarmBot

This was an idea that promised to be part of the solution to the problems of quality, scarcity and security of food. With corporations enjoying increasing control over our food supplies and the potential damage from climate change on crops of the future, society needs solutions. FarmBot has the potential...... >>

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Kathi Fletcher & OERPUB: Connecting OER

How can real human beings - teachers, for example - author, remix and share material with others when the OER toolset was almost impenetrable for non-technical people? In the early days of OER, anyone wanting to create and remix open textbooks needed reasonable knowledge of markup language, complicated models and...... >>

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Fellowship forward

Over the past 6 months we have dissected every aspect of this model, from recruitment to alumni, from Fellowship highs to Fellowship lows, to really understand the value and effect of every component. We have examined the arc of the programme over the past 10 years, Fellow by Fellow as...... >>

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Welcome Andrew

Shari Steele, the Honorary Steward for this round, has selected Andrew as an exceptional candidate with tremendous potential to improve people’s lives - particularly those suffering greatly in disaster relief areas. The Foundation team are delighted to offer Andrew a warm welcome to the Fellowship Programme. We look forward to...... >>

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Adam and Astra - New Alumni

Adam Hyde began his Fellowship with a keen understanding of the problems lying at the heart of the scholarly publishing process and an idea that promised to solve them. Science and research are key to the advancement of human knowledge. But it can take months - or even years -...... >>

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Shari Steele: Honorary steward September 2018

Shari is a respected advocate for the Internet freedom movement and served as executive director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and The Tor Project. She brings decades of experience in a breadth of fields including law, education and business, and has a keen understanding of nonprofit operations and foundation-level funding....... >>

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Welcome Jenny & Karla

We’re delighted and excited to award Jenny Molloy and Karla Córdoba-Brenes places on the Shuttleworth Foundation Fellowship Programme. Our Honorary Steward, Sunil Abraham, has chosen two exceptional candidates who offer a creative, innovative and open vision for a better world in two distinct areas: the future of the global bioeconomy,...... >>

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Luka Mustafa - New Alumni

Luka’s idea was Koruza, a 3D-printed, low-cost wireless optical network built to provide last-100m Internet connectivity to individuals and communities in high-density urban areas. As he takes the next steps in his professional career, he can look back on an extraordinary fellowship and a range of exceptional achievements. His work...... >>

Year in

PEOPLE

Together with our Fellows we focus our support on ecosystems where openness can make a substantial difference in creating a more equitable world. Move your mouse cursor over a Fellow or an area of focus for a breakdown.

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Year in

MONEY

We prioritise Fellows and their projects in our spending. The vast majority of our funding is allocated to them and their work, while we keep a small core team to provide the strategic support Fellows need and to continue guiding the evolution of the programme.

How we spent our money
Distribution of funds

Amounts less than $10000.00 were excluded from this graphic. The excluded amounts total $89,886.99.

How our fellows spent their money

At the heart of our co-investment fellowship model is the principle that Fellows continue to invest in their own ideas. The Foundation amplifies the Fellow’s investment by matching it at least tenfold, along with covering the cost of their time for the year.

The figures you see here do not reflect each Fellow’s total available fellowship year funding, but rather the funds paid out against their budget within our financial year.

Fellowship years start either March or September and Fellows are not required to spend the available funds proportionately throughout the year. As driving social change does not adhere to financial or fellowship years, Fellows are also allowed to spend unlocked project funds beyond the end of a fellowship year. In addition to Alumni continuing to participate in our bi-annual fellows’ gatherings, mentoring new Fellows and engaging in the Fellowship group as support network, we remain invested in their entities and continue to work with them on project implementation.

Achal Prabhala
Fellowship duration: September 2016 - present
12 months of fellowship in 2018
Committed funds
Fellow contribution: $20,269.64
Our contribution: $276,696.47
Spend breakdown
Accounting
$600.18
Infrastructure
$6,269.82
Legal
$36,955.48
Marketing
$400.00
Office-space
$4,380.02
People
$198,838.78
Travel
$49,521.83
Total $296,966.11
Adam Hyde
Fellowship duration: September 2015 - September 2018
9 months of fellowship in 2018
Committed funds
Fellow contribution: $16,680.69
Our contribution: $232,723.64
Spend breakdown
Marketing
$5,155.95
Infrastructure
$3,156.84
People
$104,139.58
Software
$124,566.87
Travel
$12,385.09
Total $249,404.33
Alasdair Davies
Fellowship duration: March 2017 - present
12 months of fellowship in 2018
Committed funds
Fellow contribution: $29,044.02
Our contribution: $356,977.02
Spend breakdown
Marketing
$6,866.27
Infrastructure
$9,038.20
People
$248,807.34
Software
$84,550.35
Travel
$36,758.88
Total $386,021.04
Anasuya Sengupta
Fellowship duration: March 2017 - present
12 months of fellowship in 2018
Committed funds
Fellow contribution: $36,833.12
Our contribution: $445,531.18
Spend breakdown
Marketing
$47,046.78
People
$325,200.02
Travel
$110,117.50
Total $482,364.30
Andrew Lamb
Fellowship duration: September 2018 - present
4 months of fellowship in 2018
Committed funds
Fellow contribution: $1,529.87
Our contribution: $45,298.66
Spend breakdown
Office-space
$256.94
People
$32,821.26
Travel
$13,750.33
Total $46,828.53
Astra Taylor
Fellowship duration: September 2015 - September 2018
9 months of fellowship in 2018
Committed funds
Fellow contribution: $15,292.05
Our contribution: $181,920.45
Spend breakdown
People
$183,212.50
Software
$14,000.00
Total $197,212.50
Isha Datar
Fellowship duration: September 2016 - present
12 months of fellowship in 2018
Committed funds
Fellow contribution: $40,297.83
Our contribution: $512,678.25
Spend breakdown
Legal
$7,190.90
Office-space
$45,829.40
People
$333,505.31
Travel
$166,450.47
Total $552,976.08
Jenny Molloy
Fellowship duration: March 2018 - present
10 months of fellowship in 2018
Committed funds
Fellow contribution: $16,963.05
Our contribution: $232,153.59
Spend breakdown
Marketing
$6,229.76
Infrastructure
$58,054.17
Office-space
$10,416.91
People
$132,016.90
Travel
$42,398.90
Total $249,116.64
Karla Cordoba-Brenes
Fellowship duration: March 2018 - present
10 months of fellowship in 2018
Committed funds
Fellow contribution: $11,975.31
Our contribution: $166,753.09
Spend breakdown
Legal
$90.85
Marketing
$15,589.86
Infrastructure
$4,409.06
People
$121,071.61
Software
$28,700.00
Travel
$8,867.02
Total $178,728.40
Luka Mustafa
Fellowship duration: March 2015 - March 2018
3 months of fellowship in 2018
Committed funds
Fellow contribution: $12,233.09
Our contribution: $122,330.87
Spend breakdown
Accounting
$1,596.51
Infrastructure
$14,896.53
Office Space
$6,386.08
People
$110,369.81
Travel
$1,315.03
Total $134,563.96
Mad Ball
Fellowship duration: March 2017 - present
12 months of fellowship in 2018
Committed funds
Fellow contribution: $17,965.91
Our contribution: $267,159.09
Spend breakdown
People
$250,125.00
Software
$35,000.00
Total $285,125.00
Peter Cunliffe-Jones
Fellowship duration: March 2016 - present
12 months of fellowship in 2018
Committed funds
Fellow contribution: $29,601.95
Our contribution: $384,884.74
Spend breakdown
Marketing
$19,550.00
People
$371,566.69
Travel
$23,370.00
Total $414,486.69
Tarek Loubani
Fellowship duration: March 2017 - present
12 months of fellowship in 2018
Committed funds
Fellow contribution: $16,906.27
Our contribution: $245,662.72
Spend breakdown
Marketing
$4,275.00
Infrastructure
$25,003.63
Office-space
$2,338.16
People
$147,122.46
Software
$83,236.38
Travel
$539.36
Total $262,568.99
Tiffiniy Cheng
Fellowship duration: March 2016 - March 2018
3 months of fellowship in 2018
Committed funds
Fellow contribution: $31,876.00
Our contribution: $318,760.01
Spend breakdown
Accounting
$22,800.00
Infrastructure
$22,000.00
People
$305,836.01
Total $350,636.01
Ugo Vallauri
Fellowship duration: September 2016 - present
12 months of fellowship in 2018
Committed funds
Fellow contribution: $17,968.95
Our contribution: $227,726.37
Spend breakdown
Marketing
$28,516.04
Infrastructure
$29,167.35
People
$168,699.83
Software
$15,468.76
Travel
$3,843.34
Total $245,695.32
Peter Bloom
Fellowship duration: September 2014 - September 2017
0 months of fellowship in 2018
Committed funds
Fellow contribution: $18,664.69
Our contribution: $186,646.85
Spend breakdown
Legal
$4,068.00
Marketing
$4.93
Infrastructure
$18,660.05
Office-space
$1,530.56
People
$181,048.00
Total $205,311.54
Sean Bonner
Fellowship duration: September 2014 - September 2017
0 months of fellowship in 2018
Committed funds
Fellow contribution: $897.08
Our contribution: $8,970.84
Spend breakdown
Travel
$9,867.92
Total $9,867.92
Achal Prabhala
Adam Hyde
Alasdair Davies
Anasuya Sengupta
Andrew Lamb
Astra Taylor
Isha Datar
Jenny Molloy
Karla Cordoba-Brenes
Luka Mustafa
Mad Ball
Peter Cunliffe-Jones
Tarek Loubani
Tiffiniy Cheng
Ugo Vallauri
Peter Bloom
Sean Bonner