The Early Career Fellowship is a training program to nurture a new generation of global Internet Champions. Each year, 15 Fellows embark on a 5-month capacity-building journey that empowers them with knowledge, skills, and tools to be inclusive, innovative, holistic, and strategic leaders to advocate for an open, globally connected, secure, and trustworthy Internet for everyone, everywhere.

The initial Internet pioneers over the past 30 years are now moving into retirement. There are not enough young people preparing to take on these leadership and governance roles. The Internet Society via its implementation partners like Dr. Laura DeNardis (American University), Oxford Internet Institute, Diplo Foundation, 89Up, and Pyramid Learning enables the Fellows to lead in volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous circumstances.

The 2022 cohort had 15 Fellows with the average age of 28 years hailing from 12 countries of which 53% (8) were women and 60% (9) were from the global south. We’ve been gauging early-stage impact with Fellows driving advocacy campaigns on the importance of ICT, writing academic papers and blogs on Internet issues, raising funds for Internet-related projects with a public benefit, and actively engaging in global Internet debates like organizing sessions on privacy-enabling technologies at the national-IGF.

https://www.internetsociety.org/fellowships/early-career/

• Brazil
• France
• Haiti
• India
• Indonesia
• Kenya
• Nigeria
• Switzerland
• United Kingdom
• Uruguay
• United States of America
• Venezuela

• Youth
• Women
• Remote and rural communities

The Fellowship program was carefully developed after analysing the gaps in the existing Fellowships in the Internet space. Accordingly, a nuanced program with a balance of knowledge about core Internet architecture, key Internet issues, advocacy along with hands-on practical skills to enhance employability and engagement of youth in key conversations was developed.

After two successful iterations of the Early Career Fellowship, the Internet Society also launched the Mid Career Fellowship which is a seven-month training for professionals with more than 10 years of experience. The model is similar with more focus on leadership skills and mentoring via Internet Pioneers. This further establishes the replicability of the Early Career Fellowship program.

The details about program implementation partners and the dedicated modules are publicly available on the program webpage for others to seek inspiration from.

After the successful deployment of the Early Career Fellowship in 2021, and its second edition in 2022 we have now opened the applications for the third edition and the third cohort would be onboarded in January 2023. Over the three iterations, we have not only sustained the key elements of the Fellowship but also enhanced it by adding dedicated training on the Internet Way of Networking, leadership, and communications to empower the Fellows to advocate for an open, globally connected, secure, and trustworthy Internet for everyone, everywhere.

We look forward to sustaining this program via a combination of internal budget allocations and outside funding through grants and sponsorships.

The Internet Society advocates for an Internet that is available for everyone, everywhere! Our Fellowship program aims to foster equality of opportunity by taking multiple steps: 1. A majority of the Fellows selected were women (53%) 2. A majority of the Fellows selected were from the global south (60%) 3. Connectivity stipends were offered to all Fellows who faced challenges in accessing the Internet 4. Video and audio recording along with transcripts of live sessions were provided to the Fellows so those facing connectivity issues may access the sessions via their preferred mode (for some Fellows access to audio recordings were preferred owing to bandwidth concerns) The Fellowship also fostered solidarity by pairing Fellows from different geographic regions and stakeholder groups to work together on thematic issues and host discussions. The live sessions led by subject matter experts were open for Fellows to freely express their thoughts on the key ICT issues that they see the society grappling with and to seek the inputs of others. The Fellowship also provided informal sessions where the Fellows would connect with each other, work together in groups to find solutions and in the process stimulate respect for cultural and linguistic diversity, traditions and religions, and foster dialogue among cultures and civilizations.