MIECO 2023 - Episode 0
This is the first of a four-part series where we reflect on MIECO 2023.
Mozilla's Internet Ecosystem program (MIECO) funds innovators building a better internet. It lives at the intersection of basic research, tech development, and ethics.
In this episode, we hear from MIECO participants Adam Bouhenguel, Simon Wardley, Brendan Fong, Gordon Brander, Justine Tunney, and Simon Willison.
In my role at Mozilla, I've been very empowered to not only think about how Mozilla is impacting and supporting people through our products and the programs we put on, but also to empower the broader ecosystem to do the same.
Imo Udom, SVP Innovation Ecosystems
Inspired by Xerox Parc, the goal of MIECO is to bring together and support technologists who share Mozilla's vision for an internet that is a global, public resource for all.
Don't try to change the way people think. Instead, give them a tool the use of which will naturally lead them to think differently.
Adam Bouhenguel
Substrate and Bridge
Adam designs programming systems and tools for thinking. He started Tesserai to build intelligent systems from simple, composable parts. He studied computer science at MIT.
Substrate brings powerful, local AI into homes and offices by building modular, composable hardware and an adaptive operating system.
Mission: Help people turn machine learning models and other APIs into profitable, scalable businesses. Enable new funding models that reward engineers, researchers, and scientists for their most impactful contributions.
Simon Wardley
Wardley Maps
"Wardley Mapping is a technique developed by Simon Wardley for business strategy. It's a way of visually mapping a business's value chain (activities needed to deliver a product or service) to better understand the ecosystem in which the business operates.
A visual representation of your environment strips away the illusion of simplicity, revealing the true complexity that lies beneath. It’s a call to action, recognizing that there are no shortcuts—only dedicated effort leads to meaningful progress."
Mission: Can Wardley mapping help us find ways that interactive games can be used to encourage beneficial behaviours within society?
Brendan Fong
Topos Institute
"We work towards a world where humanity can cooperate to address critical issues like climate change and AI safety through interconnected systems that consider holistic impacts."
The Topos Institute currently focuses on four themes: - Tools for Collaborative Decision-Making - Mathematics of Connected Intelligence - Practices for Ethically-Engaged Fundamental Research - Community Building and Public Engagement
Brendan is the CEO of Topos Institute, an independent research non-profit. He holds a PhD in computer science from Oxford, and undertook postdoctoral studies in systems engineering and mathematics at UPenn and MIT. He’s also the founder of the open-access journal Compositionality and co-author of the textbook An Invitation to Applied Category Theory.
Mission: Open the use and future development of AlgebraicJulia to a wider and more diverse community.
Gordon Brander
Subconscious and Noosphere
"Subconscious is a tool for thinking together. It’s powered by Noosphere, a worldwide decentralized thought graph."
"We think better when we think together. This is a first step in our mission to multiply humanity’s collective intelligence."
Justine Tunney
cosmopolitan, llamafile
Justine is an activist who started as a cyber security hacker and used that experience to improve the security of open source software. She is the creator of Redbean, an open source web server that allows you to build local web apps in a single zip executable.
Mission: Extend the reach of universal binary files from x86 chips to work on ARM chips.
Simon Willison
Datasette
Simon, a serial entrepreneur and journalist, co-founded Lanyrd, a social conference directory that was eventually acquired by Eventbrite. He is the co-creator of the Django Web framework and was also a JSK Journalism Fellow at Stanford University.
Mission: Help people publish their data online in the most flexible format for others to explore, analyze, and use.