Reuters Foundation Digital Vision Fellowship Program

Reuters Foundation Digital Vision Fellowship Program enables outstanding technologists to use their vision and talent to build information and communications technology solutions that empower developing world communities. The program is a unique initiative that brings together the academic, corporate, and NGO sectors. It gives outstanding technologists the opportunity to come to the campus of Stanford University in the heart of Silicon Valley and apply their vision and talent to address challenges facing the developing world.

Overview
The Reuters Foundation Digital Vision Fellowship Program is a sabbatical program for technology professionals at Stanford University. The Program was launched on October 1, 2001, with five fellows in the inaugural class. Digital Vision fellows are located full-time on the Stanford campus for up to one academic year (minimum six months, maximum nine months), each undertaking a project that explores the utility of information and communications technologies (ICTs) in addressing developing world problems.

Projects have a practical emphasis: fellows produce proof-of-concepts by working closely with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including Reuters Foundation's AlertNet -- an online community of 170 international disaster relief NGOs in 34 countries -- and visiting the affected areas. The flexibility of the Program makes it possible for fellows to use their creativity in determining the nature of the project and its practical aims with guidance from the Program Director. Fellows are affiliated to the Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), an interdisciplinary research faculty at Stanford. They have full access to academic and other resources of a world leading technology university. The Digital Vision Fellowship Program also holds regular seminars with world-class speakers from the technology, academic, and nonprofit sectors.

Each year, the Program accepts applications from technology visionaries around the world. The Program will sponsor up to 12 company-sponsored or independent fellows, and will pay for costs associated with each fellowship, including tuition fees, project equipment costs, and travel grants awarded to each fellow to make field trips to the developing world. In addition, Reuters Foundation will offer one fully-funded fellowship each year to a candidate from the developing world. This candidate will receive a stipend to cover living, housing and travel costs, in addition to the benefits listed above. Enjoy a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Become a visionary. Be an entrepreneur. Share your skills.

The Program encourages applications from visionary technologists, both from the Bay Area and around the world; and particularly those with family or close ties in areas of the developing world. Check these links to learn more about the foundation, the program, and the university,

The Sustainable Village is working with Enrica Porcari, a fellow in the Reuters Foundation Digital Vision Fellowship Program, to help redesign refugee camps as ecologically sustainable settlements. For more information about this project, click here.