Projects

Beyond the Net Grant – Large – $50,000

Partnerships Chair Joel Valencia continued to lead the $50,000 grant to help evaluate the Internet needs of Latine farmworkers, front line workers, and their families on California’s Central Coast. That is scheduled to be completed Fall of 2024 and will be highlighted on the Internet Society Foundation’s website remodel.

2023 Encryption Event – $1,000

On October 8th, funded by a $1,000 Global Encryption Day Grant, our chapter hosted a community beta-read of Encryption for Babies, authored by our Board President Jessica Dickinson Goodman. After incorporating community feedback, we offered the book for sale online under a Creative Commons license. All proceeds will go to benefit our chapter’s work.

The book was also incorporated into a video series on the importance of end-to-end encryption for children from the Global Encryption Coalition.

We donated all left-over temporary tattoos and stickers to other pro-encryption projects in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Nigeria,  India (Tamil Nadu, Kolkata, and Karnataka), Malawi, Washington DC and Canada.

Beyond the Net Grant – Small – $5,000

We won a $5,000 grant from the Internet Society Foundation for a digital skills training, implemented by our project partner LA Tech4Good. This should be completed by Q2 of 2024.

2022 Monthly Encryption Trainings

After the leak of the Dobbs decision, our board voted to start providing monthly tactical technical support to our community with monthly, hour-long encryption trainings. Read our blog post for more information, links to the resources we provided, and additional context. Over the course of 8 monthly trainings, Jessica Dickinson Goodman, serving as trainer, helped dozens of community members as well as ISOC chapter leaders from half-a-dozen countries explore different encryption tools, safety planning tactics, and helped facilitate community members helping each other solve their encryption-related issues.

Beyond the Net Grant – Small – $5,000

In summer 2022 we secured a $5,000 Beyond the Net Small Grant for an exciting, ambitious project. Unfortunately, after a 3 month delay, an issue with the underlying technology made the project unfeasible within the grant timeline and we decided to return the grant and try again when it is a better fit.

2022 Tech Policy Webinars

• March: Section 230: The 26 Words that Built the Internet
• April: Freedom and Security in a World with No Off Switch (Dr Laura DeNardis)
• May: Artificial Intelligence: Humanity and Governance In a World of Thinking Machines (Dr. Mark Nitzberg)
• June: Google v Oracle: Impact on Silicon Valley, Fair Use, and Reverse Engineering
• August: Ask the ACLU (Nicole A. Ozer)
• September: “The Hacking Statute Supreme Court Ruling” CFAA v Van Buren
• November: Florida’s Attempt to Regulate Online Speech and Social Media Platforms

Plus an excellent webinar for longtime board member and supporter, Ken Krechmer: The Role of Technical Standards in Enabling the Future

Beyond the Net Grant – Large – $30,000

From 2020 – 2021 we worked with the Southern California Tribal Chairman’s Association to help nearly 8,000 California Native Americans get better Internet Access. Jessica Dickinson Goodman wrote the grant, Joel Valencia and Ellen Lovelidge conducted oversight. The project concluded in November 2021. You can take a look at the final report and our findings here. Highlights:

• We helped nearly 8,000 California Native Americans in 14 different tribal nations get better Internet Access.
• We reported on the process and experience to the Northern America and Caribbean Chapters during an annual ISOC presentation.
• Our Board President participated in the 2021 Indigenous Connectivity Summit and a Better Internet Summit from Creative Commons, both furthering the goals of this grant.
• We educated our membership about the tribal nations we were working with and continued to build those relationships.