Networking Session #24 ISOC Foundation: Funding Global Connection

Summary

This transcript covers a session by the Internet Society Foundation at the Internet Governance Forum, focusing on their grant programs and impact. Sarah Armstrong, the Executive Director, presented an overview of the foundation’s work since its establishment in 2019. The foundation has committed over $60 million in grants across 1,030 projects in 121 countries, aiming to connect more people to the internet and its benefits.

The foundation operates 11 different grant programs, including Beyond the Net, Connecting the Unconnected, and Skills for digital literacy. They highlighted their impact in 2023, such as connecting over 93,000 individuals through and supporting 25 national and regional internet governance initiatives.

Several grantees shared brief overviews of their projects. These included disaster risk resilience work in Kyrgyzstan, rural library digitalization in Armenia, and providing internet connectivity to tea garden workers in India. The foundation plans to commit $12 million in grants for 2025, continuing their mission of making the internet accessible and beneficial for everyone.

The session also addressed questions from attendees about research grant criteria, child online safety programs, and initiatives for empowering women and building infrastructure in Afghanistan. The foundation encouraged interested parties to explore their website for detailed information on various funding opportunities and eligibility criteria.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– Overview of the Internet Society Foundation’s grant programs and impact

– Examples of funded projects from grantees in different countries

– Criteria and application process for various grant programs

– Focus on connecting underserved communities and empowering people through internet access and skills

Overall purpose:

The purpose of this discussion was to introduce the Internet Society Foundation, highlight its grant programs and impact, and provide an opportunity for networking among attendees interested in internet development projects.

Speakers

– Rigdzin Collins, Associate Program Officer at the Internet Society Foundation

– Sarah Armstrong, Executive Director of the Internet Society Foundation

– Brian Horlick-Cruz, Associate Program Officer at the Internet Society Foundation

The Internet Society Foundation Session at the Internet Governance Forum

Introduction:

Rigdzin Collins opened the Internet Society Foundation session at the Internet Governance Forum, introducing the foundation’s work and the session’s structure. The event was designed to provide an overview of the foundation’s grant programmes and impact, featuring presentations from key speakers and grantees. Collins outlined three networking sections focused on infrastructure, training, and ISOC chapters.

Overview of the Internet Society Foundation:

Sarah Armstrong, the Executive Director, presented a comprehensive overview of the foundation’s work since its establishment in 2019. She highlighted the foundation’s mission to support internet development and accessibility through various grant programmes. Armstrong emphasized the foundation’s significant impact, mentioning that they had connected thousands of individuals through their programmes and supported numerous national and regional internet governance initiatives. She also noted that impact reports were available at the back table for attendees interested in more detailed information.

Examples of Funded Projects:

Several grantees shared brief overviews of their projects, illustrating the diverse range of initiatives supported by the foundation:

1. Talant from Kyrgyzstan discussed projects focused on IoT for disaster risk resilience and the development of an early warning system for mudflows. He also mentioned initiatives related to smart agriculture and air quality monitoring.

2. Christina from Armenia presented a rural library digitalization project. She explained how the project aims to preserve cultural heritage by digitizing rare books and manuscripts, making them accessible online and creating digital skills training programs for librarians and community members.

3. Osama Manzir from the Digital Empowerment Foundation in India highlighted two projects:

a) Providing internet connectivity to tea garden workers in Assam, addressing both connectivity and social justice issues. The project aims to connect 50 tea gardens and empower women through digital literacy.

b) Implementing a disaster communication system in the Himalayas, creating a network of information centers to improve disaster preparedness and response.

Grant Application Process and Q&A:

During the Q&A session, Rigdzin Collins addressed several questions:

1. Research Grants: Collins mentioned that specific criteria for research grants are available on the foundation’s website.

2. Child Online Safety Projects: Collins confirmed that grants are available for projects focused on child safety online and encouraged interested parties to explore the foundation’s website for more information.

3. Infrastructure and Connectivity Programmes: Collins noted the availability of programmes supporting infrastructure development and connectivity initiatives.

4. Empowering Women: The Skills programme was highlighted as focusing on empowering women through digital literacy and skills training.

Networking and Engagement:

Collins encouraged attendees to network with each other during the session, fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing. Participants were invited to visit the ISOC Foundation and ISOC booths near Workshop Room 1 for more detailed information on various funding opportunities and eligibility criteria. An icebreaker question about attendees’ first internet use was suggested to facilitate engagement.

Brian, the online moderator, noted that there were online participants but no questions had been received from them.

Conclusion:

The Internet Society Foundation session provided a comprehensive overview of the organisation’s grant programmes, impact, and future plans. By showcasing diverse projects and addressing various aspects of internet development, the foundation demonstrated its commitment to bridging the digital divide and empowering communities worldwide through internet access and skills.

Rigdzin Collins: If you, if you have different sections, because we are gonna do a bit of a breakout for networking. So the first section would be infrastructure and connecting the unconnected. The second section is training, if you feel like you would like to meet people involved in this area, it’s number three. And the third section is for ISOC chapters who would like to meet other people in ISOC chapters. Can you, is it okay? It’s working, I can hear it. Hear me? Can everyone hear me? Okay, they can hear me. So I was just saying if you would like to sit in a section, we have three different sections. A section for infrastructure and connecting the unconnected, a section related to digital literacy and training, and a section for ISOC chapters, or if you’re interested in ISOC chapters, you can sit on this side. Sorry, it’s cutting out a bit. You do not have to sit in those areas, but it’s just if you want to be during the networking section. So I think we’re ready to start now. Sorry, we’re starting a bit behind. Can everyone hear? Great. So my name is Rigzin Collins. I’m an Associate Program Officer at the Internet Society Foundation. I’m so happy you joined us today. We want to thank the IGF for letting us have this session. It’s our first session as a foundation, as the ISOC Foundation at the IGF. I, today, am joined by Sarah Armstrong, who’s our Executive Director. Hello. And my colleague, Brian Horlick-Cruz, who is another Associate Program Officer, who I think many of you work with. And so today, we’re just going to do a bit of an overview of our work at the foundation. And then we really hope that this session will give people a chance to meet each other. We’re gonna hear from a few grantees, hopefully. We’re gonna put a few grantees on the spot. I see some people who have just walked in. And to break up, exchange information, and then meet back for some questions. You have a note card on your table. If you have a question that you would like to ask us, please feel free to write this. We might not be able to get through all of the questions, but we will try to get through some, and we can try to answer questions you have after. I also want to say thank you to the people online, and our moderator will also be taking your questions. Sorry. So now, I would like to turn it over to Sarah.

Sarah Armstrong: Good afternoon to everyone in this room, and good morning or evening to those who are online. We are very pleased to have the opportunity to have this session, and to meet all of you, and to share with you information about funding Global Connection. We want to really focus on connection. And when we say connection, it’s not just a matter of getting people access and connection to the internet, but also a connection to the benefits of the internet, and the way in which it can change lives. So we’ll be talking about the foundation itself, and then we’ll also share some stories about what our grantees are doing, as that is the first thing that’s referred to us. So I will start just by sharing with you, well, here’s the name, and as I said, focusing on the word connection. Our vision for the internet, or our vision is that the internet is for everyone. And this is a statement that we share with the Internet Society, and the idea here is to make sure that we get the internet to as many people as possible, and as we know, we still have a challenge. There’s over 2.5 billion people. So we wanna continue to find ways to make an internet for everyone. We are a supporting organization. The Internet Society Foundation is a supporting organization for the Internet Society, and specifically what we’re doing is making sure that we work together to secure an open, globally connected, and trustworthy internet for all. So that’s a real focus for us. And then I just wanna mention that what you’ll be hearing about today is the philanthropy efforts of the foundation, and what that means is grant giving, or is administering grants, managing grants, managing relationships with grantees, and that’s what we do all day long every day with a lot of passion. Go, thank you. Okay, so in 2019, we began looking at how to form a foundation, and then really got kicked into gear in 2020. And that year, yes, the year of the pandemic, we started this foundation, was our first full operational year. And we are now in our fifth full operational year, almost concluding, because we’re so close to the end of the year. And as you can see, since I’ve committed over $60 million in grants, we have committed 1,030 grants over this time that we’ve been involved. And then we are working, or have worked, in 121 countries. So we’ve really grown quite a bit, quite rapidly, and feeling very good about the progress that we’ve made. And we’ve done this because of the types of grantees that we have been able to in our programs, and yeah, work together in making an internet for everyone. So here is a slide that shows for you what our different program areas are, and our program of them right now, as you can see. I’m not gonna talk you through every single one of these, because I think we want some time for everybody else to talk. And yeah. I just want to say the table in the back, the very back table, you’ll see our impact reports. I know there are not enough seats, so people might be sitting there, which is fine. But if people want more information about the programs, they can take a glance on their way out of the back table. Yeah, and also we’ll talk about where you can find things on the website, because there’s an awful lot of information on all these different programs. But the different ones that you can see, include Beyond the Net, which is a chapter program. We have one called Connecting the Unconnected. We do a Global Encryption Day. We’ve got Research. We have a program we call Skills. And the purpose of Skills is to make sure that once people are online, that they’re benefiting from that access, and working in the education and in economic opportunities arena, to see what they can do with the skills that we can help provide through our grantees to change their lives. Sustainable Peering Infrastructure, focused on IXPs and Sustainable Technical Communities. We know what those are. So that’s just a quick snapshot of the 11 program areas that we fund. Here’s some examples. Rixon just mentioned our impact reports. We are now going to be doing an impact report for our program areas at the end of each year, and produce them in the beginning of the year. Right now on the table, you’ll see program impact statements and impact briefs, and that will be covering 2023. And now, right now, we’re developing ideas for how to share impact for 2024, and that we will be able to share with you sometime in the first quarter. Kind of keeps coming out. Sorry about that. I’m not sure what I’m doing here. So Beyond the Net is a program, as I mentioned, for Internet Society chapters. In 2023 how many people we connected and how many training skills trainings were delivered to how many individuals. Additionally we have a program called BOLT and that stands for Building Opportunities Leveraging Technologies and that is targeted to registered nonprofits. We do have a requirement that our organizations that we fund through some of these programs are 501c3 or equivalent. So that’s just something to know if you’re considering applying to some of our grant programs you’ll see that that is a requirement. You can see with the bridging technology BOLT which is an effort to find innovative ways to connect people. We’ve connected again this is the 2023 impact 93,000 individuals and 538 internet access points. And then we have internet governance forums. We fund internet governance forums on the national, regional, and global level. So we’re helping to support this meeting that we’re all sitting in now. And then also we digs so schools of internet governance so people can apply for funding and you can see what we did in 2023, 25 NRIs and 629 participants in the SIGs that we funded. So going on to a couple more programs just to share with you. Resiliency is a program that we run because we know that all communities now are more vulnerable to disasters because of what’s happening with the climate. We felt it was important to have a program where we could help communities be more prepared for what it is that might happen and how they can get connectivity up quickly. So this program called Resiliency is all all have been having trainings ahead of time making sure people know what to do when a hurricane, when a landslide, when an earthquake, when in anything hits them. So we’re working now in this case you can see across 41 countries and making a big difference in getting people ready so when these things happen they’re more prepared. Research is a program that we have that has a number of different themes to it. Again we’ll refer you to our website with more information. And finally Skills I mentioned earlier is a program where we are taking people who have access and helping them in the areas of education and economic opportunities. So in this case you can see we trained a lot of people on internet use for economic opportunities. So those are just some quick highlights from 2023 from six of our programs out of the eleven. And then I’m just going to give you a couple of brief examples of organizations that we’ve worked with and the work that they’ve produced. So you can see here Skills a grantee spotlight right here. This is the one it’s one of our programs in Indonesia. So Skills works in six different countries Indonesia and Bangladesh in the APAC region. It works in Senegal and Ghana in the African region. And in the Latin America Caribbean region it works in both Brazil and Colombia. So we have an example here of them training and really empowering women with disabilities. I’m just going to read you a little quote from someone who was part of the program. The Skills grant program has been instrumental in advancing our mission to support the aspirations and needs of women with disabilities to become economically independent and confident in their abilities and to foster an exclusive inclusive and safe environment where everyone can thrive. So you can see that it’s really a life-changing type program. And then the other one I just want to highlight is a Kyrgyzstan chapter. The Internet Society for those who are not familiar they have chapters throughout the world and they’re well over a hundred and they are all almost all eligible to apply for grants. And when they apply for grants they can get one with the Beyond the Net but they can also get a research grant if they have the qualifications. And the Kyrgyzstan chapter did get a research grant and they are one of those areas that are really really vulnerable to landslides. So they developed a program where they were able to put together an Internet of Things infrastructure in order to make sure that we could detect they could detect when mudslides or landslides might be coming and and prepare that way. So this is just another innovative way that one of our grantees has decided to use the funding that was provided. And then we support IGFs, NRIs, and SIGs as I mentioned earlier. And just to give you by the numbers for this year so this isn’t 2023 this is this year. And we have supported 67 initiatives and provided well over $500,000 U.S. to you know to make sure that those are all running well and and we’ve had a lot of good success. And then this is a location map for where our different 67 sponsorships in 2024 were located and you can see the global is highlighted because we are supporting this meeting. And then you can see we really hit a good amount of areas around the world. So what are we going to do in 2025 based on all that stuff that I just shared with you? Our plan is to commit 12 million USD in grants and that’s something that we feel really confident that we are going to be able to do. And then operationalize everything. And what we do when we operationalize everything is that we make sure that we are really in sync with the Internet. All about as we were talking about the Internet is for everyone. Making sure more people are connected in a secure safe way and affordable of course very important as well. So that’s the direction that we plan to go for 2025. Those are some examples of the programs that we fund. And then I just want to say that we believe together we can amplify our impact and create solutions to connect more people to the Internet. And when we say together we mean people in this room in passion we do for this. And of course we mean really working hard and having great relationships with the grantees because they’re the ones who really pull everything together and do impressive work. So I will end with the slide of how you can connect with us. There are many different ways. You can scan our QR code and get our newsletter. And then of course we’re all over social media. So what we’d like to do now since you’ve just seen an overview and I can take questions later. But what we want to I think right wait or we’re very lucky. Sorry my headset is a little long. Thank you Sarah for that for giving us

Rigdzin Collins: This wonderful presentation. We have actually the Kyrgyzstan chapter present. And so I wanted to put we have a few of our grantees here and I just wanted to ask them if they could maybe if they don’t mind very briefly just tell us a little bit like very short explanation of their current project. So I have three grantees here that I’m going to pick on and I’m just going to ask if you could maybe tell people a little bit about your current work and I guess maybe your experience working with the foundation or you don’t have to say that but your current work just so people know the kind of projects that are being done. But I would ask if we could can keep the responses a little bit short, because we have another few sections. So my first person is Talant, if you don’t mind. Sorry. Do you want to come up? It’s working, yeah?

Talant: So I want to say thank you to ISOC Foundation for this grants provide. And indeed, as mentioned, we have actually a couple of grants that we are implementing. One is a research grant on using IoT LoRaWAN technology for disaster risk resilience. And another project that we’re implementing is a Beyond the Net grant on digital skills and digital hygiene trainings for rural communities. And all of our work is focused on rural communities in the local language, and with the emphasis on opportunities for girls and women in rural communities. And we’d like to thank you for all these opportunities. Thanks.

Rigdzin Collins: Thank you so much, Talant. So we also have present two more grantees that I’m just going to briefly pick on. Sorry, I can’t hear. So I hope this is working. We have Christina from the ISOC Armenia chapter. And they’ve been doing some wonderful Beyond the Net projects.

Christina: Hello, everyone. We are working with ISOC Foundation in the scope of rural libraries project. And it is very great project we are doing with ISOC Foundation. We are supporting rural libraries for digitalization process, and make their books and their, let’s say, magazines, et cetera. All stuff they have, we are supporting them to create a program. Actually, we create a program for them. And they are digitalizing their old stuff. I read them, I mean, in my network. And they created a hub for all people in rural areas. And they are coming to these hubs and doing their work, gaining money, or just for the information they are gaining from these libraries. And it is very great. Thank you very much for your support and for your continuous work with us. Thank you very much.

Rigdzin Collins: Thank you. Thank you, Christina. And thank you for sharing your thoughts with us last minute. And then we finally have Osama from the Digital Empowerment Foundation. And he is not, I don’t know if you’re an ISOC member. But this is an example of someone who is not an ISOC chapter affiliate, but is an outside organization that we’ve been able to work with on several projects. So I know you have very interesting work. If you want to tell us a little bit about your current project or anything you want to share with people.

Osama: Yeah, thank you very much. I’m Osama Manzir from Digital Empowerment Foundation. And there are three relationships. One is that I remember since we have been associated with ISOC for a very, very long time, I remember when before even ISOC Foundation, there was a whole feedback session that used to happen. Is that should we create a foundation? Should we create a grant making organization? And I was very actively involved in that, that yes, we should. Because they wanted to have community intervention to hear from, whom it will benefit directly. So that was that. But for the foundation, and we are granted three times, actually. And one was Bolt. And very interesting project that we did is that, I don’t know how many of you know that there are tea gardens, hundreds of thousands. There are 5,000 tea gardens in Assam and North Bengal in India. And most of these tea gardens employ almost slave-like workers. And they all are indigenous communities. And they work like slaves. And without any internet connectivity, complete violation of their daily wages, or their wages, and so on and so forth. And then this grant was basically to provide internet connectivity in the middle of the garden, bypassing all administrative and bureaucratic hassles. And we could do 50 in the first one. And it was so successful that ISOC Foundation asked for next proposal. And now we have 100 tea gardens having connectivity, and access, and education, everything available in a community level, managed by the community member on a sustainable basis. So it’s like 100 tea gardens. And it is replicating every year. So that’s one. The second is that you know Himalayas. Everybody want to go to Himalayas for tourism, for adventure, for everything. But they also live in very, very strong disaster zones. So there is this one project that we are doing where we are working in an area where there is. So we are establishing a communication system, along with a community center, which is connected through data. And to have a 24 by 7 connectivity in a disaster zone, so that you are always next to the data connectivity for informing anything. So these are a couple of things. I can go on and on. But yeah.

Rigdzin Collins: Thank you, Osama. Brian, I know you’ve been moderating online. And we don’t want to forget the people online. And since we are in person, maybe we can, in the interest of time, take some questions from online people. Sure thing, Rigsu. We do not have any online questions at this moment. But we’ll see if any come in. Does anyone here have any questions they would like to ask? Otherwise, we can break out. OK. Oh, I think I saw your hand, professor. Yeah. What are the criteria for a research grant? So in this case, we definitely encourage you to go to our Am I not on? You are. Am I on? You’re good. OK. I’m on. Thank you. We encourage you to go to our Internet Society Foundation website, because it can give you all the information. It will also provide you with the different themes that we’re funding. We have the internet economy, we have a decolonizing internet and we also have the green internet. So those are four different categories under which you can apply for research grants. If you’re an individual, you could certainly apply. If you’re with an organization, an academic institution, you can certainly apply. And you’ll see there are various levels of funding, depending on the type of person or application that we’re getting. So at ISOCfoundation.org, which is our website, and I think you’ll see there’s a tab right on the home page that says funding areas. So you can certainly get all of the different criteria for what we need. And as I mentioned, in some of the cases, it absolutely has to be a 501c3 or equivalent if it’s an organization. So yeah. OK. Who is next? Right here? OK. OK. Can you hear me? All right.

Mary: My name is Mary Uduma. I’m from Nigeria. I belong to the Nigerian chapter of the internet. Specifically, I’m asking about child safety, online, and protection. Because we have a foundation that is specializing in child safety. on that and engaging parents and engaging teachers and working with children, young people, whether the grants were eligible to be able to apply for a grant to do this work. Nigeria is a large country and so many schools. This year we had a summit and we had the children and other stakeholders around. And so that’s what I chair is focusing on. So I wanted to know whether it would be eligible to apply for a grant. Thank you.

Rigdzin Collins: Yeah, absolutely. What we would encourage you to do again is to go and look at what the different programs are and see what the work of your foundation does, how it matches up. And because we’re just about to turn a new year, many programs are starting to open up and launch again. We have a number of them launching in January. And you’re with a chapter as well, or you would be applying as the foundation, your foundation? Applying as the foundation, not the foundation. Okay, yeah. So certainly you can see if we can, because we are doing some of this work already with some of our grantees. So I would encourage you to get more information from the website. Yes. And I think we need to maybe have one more quick question and then we are going to do a breakout. But what we can do is, so if you want to meet people within your section, please feel free to do that after this question. And we will stay here. If other people have questions, they can come to us. So I think just to make it fair.

Atikullah: My name is Atikullah. I came here from Pakistan. So my question, based on it, only 7% area have access to internet. It’s breaking up a little bit. Maybe if you. This way? Okay. I hope my question didn’t got lengthy. My question is that, based on area percentage, only 7% area have power. Population people have access to internet. And as the current government of Taliban is day by day banning education on women. So is there any special program from international society side for empowering Afghan women? First question. And second, based on infrastructure, is there any special program building infrastructure up internet in Afghanistan from international society sides?

Rigdzin Collins: Thank you. Yes. So we have a number of programs that focus specifically on building infrastructure. Yes. Connecting the unconnected is one of the programs. Yes. And that’s all about that. It’s mainly. It’s mainly networks. So that’s an option. As I mentioned earlier, the BOLT program is all about innovative ways to connect people. So there’s funding available there as well. So we have at least a couple of programs where we can do that. And you can certainly, again, rather than going into all kinds of long criteria and what the objectives of the program are and how you have to match to support the mission of ISOC, these are all requirements that you will see if you go to our page. But I would start with those two programs, looking at BOLT and looking at connecting the unconnected. And what about the empowering Afghan women? Is there any special program for empowering Afghan women? Well, yes. I mean, our skills program is really very focused on that. So that’s another program that’s worth. It depends on what country in which you’re working because right now we’re working in just six countries, but we do plan to look at expanding that in 2025 and 2026. Thanks. Okay. Thank you so much for your questions. So now I think what we can do is do a little bit of networking with each other. So if we want to take a few minutes the rest of the session maybe, we can meet back at the end. But we just wanted to maybe pose a question. You’re sitting in an area that you chose when you came in. I know some of you just sat down. Thank you so much. So our question is, if you want to go and talk to people, you can either ask them why they chose to sit in this area, tell them a little bit about yourself, your project, or if you feel shy doing that, we have another icebreaker that we really like to do at the foundation. Find someone and ask them their first time they remember using the Internet or showing someone how to use the Internet because I know some people are very young and they never knew a life without Internet. So we encourage everyone now to meet. We also will walk around. If you have questions for us, please come up and talk to us. And also just a reminder, our booth, our ISOC booth, the ISOC Foundation and ISOC booth is down. I don’t remember the exact number. It’s near Workshop Room 1. It’s in front of Workshop Room 1. So we will be there all week. If you have other questions or want to come by and say hi, please do. We want to thank everyone for joining us today because it’s really great to have so many people here. So now we really encourage everyone to make the most of this networking session and meet some new people. Yeah, we wanted to be sure you networked in the networking session. If you feel like it. If you want to do that and just get to know some of the people with whom you’re sitting, that would be great. And if that doesn’t feel like something everybody wants to at least try, we can certainly… Sure, we can take more questions. Take more questions. Yeah. We encourage you to talk to other people. What do you think? Ask that question. Ask that question. Yeah. When was the first time you remember using the internet? Oh, a long time ago. Thank you.

Agreement Points

Importance of connecting underserved communities

Sarah Armstrong

Speaker 1

Speaker 2

Speaker 3

Foundation’s vision and mission

IoT for disaster risk resilience in Kyrgyzstan

Rural library digitalization in Armenia

Internet connectivity for tea garden workers in India

All speakers emphasized the importance of connecting underserved communities to the internet and providing digital skills training.

Focus on empowering women and girls

Sarah Armstrong

Speaker 1

Rigdzin Collins

Grant programs and funding areas

IoT for disaster risk resilience in Kyrgyzstan

Focus on empowering women through Skills program

Multiple speakers highlighted the foundation’s efforts to empower women and girls through various programs and projects.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the significant impact of the foundation’s work in connecting large numbers of people and improving their lives through internet access.

Sarah Armstrong

Speaker 3

Impact and reach of foundation’s work

Internet connectivity for tea garden workers in India

Unexpected Consensus

Disaster preparedness and resilience

Speaker 1

Speaker 3

IoT for disaster risk resilience in Kyrgyzstan

Disaster communication system in Himalayas

Despite representing different regions and organizations, both speakers highlighted projects focused on using technology for disaster preparedness and resilience, indicating a shared recognition of this important application of internet connectivity.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement centered around the importance of connecting underserved communities, empowering women and girls, and using technology for social impact and disaster resilience.

Consensus level

There was a high level of consensus among the speakers regarding the foundation’s mission and the importance of its work. This strong agreement implies a unified approach to addressing global connectivity challenges and suggests that the foundation’s priorities align well with the needs identified by grantees and partners in various regions.

Different Viewpoints

Unexpected Differences

Overall Assessment

summary

There were no significant disagreements observed among the speakers. The discussion was primarily informative and collaborative, focusing on the Internet Society Foundation’s mission, grant programs, and examples of funded projects.

difference_level

Very low. The speakers presented a unified message about the foundation’s work and its impact. This alignment suggests a cohesive approach to addressing internet connectivity and digital empowerment challenges globally.

Partial Agreements

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the significant impact of the foundation’s work in connecting large numbers of people and improving their lives through internet access.

Sarah Armstrong

Speaker 3

Impact and reach of foundation’s work

Internet connectivity for tea garden workers in India

Key Takeaways

The Internet Society Foundation has committed over $60 million in grants across 121 countries since 2020

The Foundation has 11 program areas including connecting the unconnected, digital skills training, and supporting Internet governance forums

Examples of funded projects include disaster resilience in Kyrgyzstan, rural library digitalization in Armenia, and internet connectivity for tea garden workers in India

The Foundation plans to commit $12 million USD in grants in 2025

Grant applications can be made through the Foundation’s website, with different criteria for various programs

Resolutions and Action Items

Attendees encouraged to network with each other during the session

Participants invited to visit the ISOC Foundation booth for more information

Unresolved Issues

Specific details on expanding the Skills program to new countries in 2025-2026

Exact criteria for eligibility of child online safety projects for grants

Suggested Compromises

None identified

We are now going to be doing an impact report for our program areas at the end of each year, and produce them in the beginning of the year.

speaker

Sarah Armstrong

reason

This comment is insightful because it demonstrates a commitment to transparency and accountability in the foundation’s work. By producing regular impact reports, the organization is showing its dedication to measuring and sharing the results of its programs.

impact

This comment set the tone for the presentation, emphasizing the foundation’s focus on measurable impact and data-driven decision making. It likely increased audience interest in the specific outcomes of the foundation’s work.

We have supported 67 initiatives and provided well over $500,000 U.S. to you know to make sure that those are all running well and and we’ve had a lot of good success.

speaker

Sarah Armstrong

reason

This comment is thought-provoking because it provides concrete numbers that illustrate the scale of the foundation’s impact. It gives the audience a clear sense of the organization’s reach and financial commitment.

impact

This statement likely sparked curiosity among the audience about the specific initiatives supported and may have led to follow-up questions about the types of projects funded.

We are supporting rural libraries for digitalization process, and make their books and their, let’s say, magazines, et cetera. All stuff they have, we are supporting them to create a program.

speaker

Christina from ISOC Armenia chapter

reason

This comment is insightful because it provides a specific example of how the foundation’s work is impacting local communities. It illustrates a practical application of technology to preserve and share cultural resources.

impact

This real-world example likely made the foundation’s work more tangible for the audience and may have inspired others to think about similar projects in their own communities.

And now we have 100 tea gardens having connectivity, and access, and education, everything available in a community level, managed by the community member on a sustainable basis.

speaker

Osama Manzir from Digital Empowerment Foundation

reason

This comment is particularly thought-provoking because it highlights a unique and impactful project that addresses both connectivity and social justice issues. It demonstrates how internet access can be leveraged to improve working conditions and empower marginalized communities.

impact

This example likely broadened the audience’s perspective on the potential applications of internet connectivity projects and may have sparked discussions about similar initiatives in other industries or regions.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by providing concrete examples and data that illustrated the real-world impact of the Internet Society Foundation’s work. They moved the conversation from general statements about the foundation’s mission to specific, tangible outcomes. This likely increased audience engagement and understanding of the foundation’s role in promoting internet access and digital empowerment globally. The diversity of projects mentioned, from rural libraries to tea gardens, demonstrated the wide-ranging applications of the foundation’s support and may have inspired attendees to consider new possibilities for internet-related initiatives in their own contexts.

What are the specific criteria for a research grant?

speaker

Unnamed professor

explanation

Understanding the criteria is crucial for potential applicants to determine their eligibility and prepare strong proposals.

Are grants available for projects focused on child safety online?

speaker

Mary Uduma

explanation

This information is important for organizations working on child protection to know if they can access funding for their initiatives.

Are there any special programs for empowering Afghan women?

speaker

Atikullah

explanation

Given the current situation in Afghanistan, targeted programs for women’s empowerment are particularly relevant and necessary.

Are there any special programs for building internet infrastructure in Afghanistan?

speaker

Atikullah

explanation

With only 7% of the population having internet access, understanding available support for infrastructure development is crucial for improving connectivity in the country.