14 DAY TRIAL // Google has been participating in many initiatives and getting involved in many deals through the years, some of them related to issues that were most pressing to the Mountain View based company: the development and contribution to open source software projects. Starting in 2005, every summer brought a new "Summer of Code" program, the latest one, in 2007, ran through August 31 and brought together 900 students and nearly 1500 mentors across 90 countries to contribute to over 130 different such projects.
Now the Great Search Engine has turned its eye upon the public policy sphere and announced today the launch of the Google Policy Fellowship program, in an attempt to replicate the "Summer of Code" success and to support students and organizations doing important work for the future of Internet users everywhere.
"Fascinated by the twists and turns of the upcoming FCC spectrum auction? Can't get enough of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act? Passionate about online freedom of expression issues? If you're a undergraduate, graduate, or law student interested in the world of tech policy, or know someone who is, keep reading." These are the key-ideas that Liz Eraker, Policy Analyst and Jen Marsh, Fellowship Coordinator have delivered in the Google Public Policy Blog.
There will be a selection, not anybody is free to stroll into the Fellowship and be accepted, and the fellows selected will receive a stipend to spend ten weeks contributing to the public debate on technology policy issues. If you think that's a much too wide definition for the activity, here it is, broken down into a few examples and ranges: from broadband policy to copyright reform and even to open government.
The organizations that participate in this beta summer of 2008 are the following, with hopes of adding more: American Library Association, Cato Institute, Center for Democracy and Technology, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Electronic Freedom Foundation, Internet Education Foundation, Media Access Project, New America Foundation, and Public Knowledge. And the deadline for applying for this opportunity is the 1st of January, 2008.