Director Digital Infrastructure Insights Fund
CurrentThe Digital Infrastructure Insights Fund, established in 2018, is a global multi-funder initiative supported by Ford Foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Omidyar Network and Schmidt Futures.Together, they sustain a platform for academics and practitioners to better understand how open digital infrastructure is built and deployed. Via open calls and commissions, D//F curates a body of research & implementation insights that advance our mutual goal: to ensure a public commons of technology, for the benefit of everyone. By fostering collaboration, experiments and sharing of knowledge, the circle of funders supports those who build, use, and rely on critical open source projects on the base layer.Safeguarding sustainable, open digital infrastructure is a matter of public interest. Without a deeper understanding of the dynamics influencing and more just ways of maintaining our shared digital resources as joint effort across foundations, governments, businesses, academia and volunteer communities, inequities will follow. These could manifest as the consolidation of essential services within monopolies or the potential loss of access to knowledge and (digital) means of production.We are looking for analyses on how open digital infrastructure interacts and intersects with politics & sovereign responsibilities, diverse economic sectors, and scientific research throughout the disciplines. We seek to investigate the issues of under-maintenance and potential undermining of infrastructural Free and Open Software (FOSS), and to explore any geographical or other disparities within the communities responsible for providing & sustaining this open digital infrastructure amid evolving economic, regulatory & socio-technical environments.We aim to back the development of pertinent work that examines the convergence of FOSS with social movements focused on democracy, rights, justice, the environment as well as the advancement of knowledge in academia & beyond.