Introduction

The Internet Society Foundation supports organizations around the world to create an Internet for Everyone – by enabling access and digital skills for communities in need, by funding research into critical issues around the future of the Internet, and by supporting the delivery of Internet-based solutions to challenges that face people around the world.

We currently support grantees in 90 countries across 6 continents, and awarded USD $18,388,172 in funding in 2023.

Card Back Card Front

Countries the Internet Society Foundation has funded projects since 2015.
Click to highlight the countries with active projects throughout 2020

Meet a selection of our grantees

Neema Iyer

Neema Iyer

Neema Iyer is an artist and a technologist. She is the founder of Pollicy, an award-winning feminist civic technology collective based in Kampala, Uganda. Pollicy uses data, design and technology to explore the impact of emerging technology on society and vice-versa. Neema currently leads the design of a number of projects focused on building data skills, on fostering conversations on data governance and digital security, and on innovating around technology policy.

She is a 2021 awardee of our Research grant program and is part of a team investigating the role that language plays in promoting digital inclusion. (Watch this lightning talk to learn more about their research).

Neema Iyer
Sanjay Fernades – SOLE Colombia

Sanjay Fernandes

Sanjay is the founder and director of SOLE Colombia Foundation, whose purpose is to transform the future of learning in Colombia. SOLE is a disruptive education methodology that empowers communities to develop autonomy, collaboration, deep learning, and most important of all, to solve real-life problems.

Since 2014, the SOLE methodology has been scaled up to reach over 450,000 people of all ages in more than 800 schools, 1,500 public libraries and hundreds of public spaces with connectivity; in collaboration with the government, private companies, the social sector and citizens. His work earned him a nomination for the 2017 Best Leaders of Colombia Award from the Leadership and Democracy Foundation, Semana Magazine and Telefónica. Sanjay and his colleagues are 2021 awardees of our BOLT grant program.

Sanjay Fernades – SOLE Colombia
Dr David Johnson

Dr David Johnson

Dr David Johnson (PhD) is a telecommunications consultant and adjunct senior lecturer in the Computer Science Department at the University of Cape Town specialising in distributed networking and community network access models. In 2018 he started iNethi, a non-profit company that is building a platform that provides local network services and content for communities that lack reliable or affordable Internet access.

He has led a number of connectivity projects in the area of small cell, mesh technology, blockchain and edge-hosted services in Zambia and South Africa.

He is a 2021 awardee of our Research grant program and is part of a team investigating the question: Can decentralized blockchain-based economic systems incentivize vulnerable communities to create and grow their own networking infrastructure, services, and content? 

Dr David Johnson
Jessica Goodman

Jessica Dickinson Goodman

Jessica Dickinson Goodman bridges the worlds of technology and government, bringing the best of both to what she does. Her first job out of college was running national online communications in Washington DC for the largest anti-human trafficking NGO serving survivors of all forms of trafficking. She is currently the Social Justice and Tech Facilitator for Foothill College in the heart of Silicon Valley. She is also President of the Internet Society’s U.S San Francisco Bay Chapter, who through her efforts were awarded a 2020 Beyond the Net grant to improve Internet access for 9,000 Native American tribal nation members in California by supporting Matthew Rantanen's work as Director of Technology for the Southern California Tribal Chairman's Association.

Jessica Goodman
Dr Chomora Mikeka working on a 3D printer

Chomora Mikeka

Associate Professor Chomora Mikeka is the Director of Science, Technology and Innovation (DSTI) in the Ministry of Education of Malawi Government, and former Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Malawi. As a child, his curiosity about the voices from unseen beings in his father’s radio led him to break the radio in search of the voices, sparking a lifelong interest in Science and Engineering. His PhD research was about power autonomous sensor radio based on cellular and digital TV RF energy harvesting. He is a 2021 awardee of our Research Grant Program and is leading a study that aims to “green” the way garbage is collected in cities.

Dr Chomora Mikeka working on a 3D printer
Adam Marlatt

Adam Marlatt

Adam Marlatt has been serving as Help.NGO’s Operations Director since 2010 leading ground operations in L3 emergencies across 6 continents. Adam leads the organizations Disaster Immediate Response Team into the immediate aftermath of crises providing technical solutions, emergency connectivity, medical assistance, and coordination support. He’s a White House Author and in 2013 received the Champions of Change award from President Obama for the use of innovation and technology in disaster response.

Prior to engagement in the Humanitarian Sector Adam served as an Infantry Platoon Sergeant in the United States Marines Corps over 8 years.

He is a 2020 and 2021 awardee of the Internet Society Foundation’s Emergency Response: COVID-19 grant program.

Adam Marlatt

Explore the projects

If you're working on any of the themes we fund, you can read the details behind our grant programmes in more detail: