Community Grants Programme’s 10th round helps extend Internet’s reach and promote key technologies

[Washington, D.C., USA and Geneva, Switzerland–23 December 2009] The Internet Society (ISOC) today announced it is funding community-based projects around the world to promote Internet access and education in underserved communities, to track and highlight the deployment of IPv6–the next generation protocol key to the Internet’s continued growth, and to address issues such as online identity theft.

“These awards extend the Internet Society Community Grants Programme’s five-year tradition of providing tangible support for efforts by the Internet Society’s global community in realizing our shared vision that the Internet can be used to improve the life of people in all parts of the world,” said Jon McNerney, Chief Operating Officer of the Internet Society. “As the Internet becomes a larger part of everyday life in many parts of the world, it is even more important that we enable its use by the billions of people on every continent who today are without access.”

As part of the ISOC Community Grants Programme, each project will receive up to US$15,000 for efforts that promote the open development, evolution, and use of the Internet for the benefit of all people throughout the world.

Projects funded in this round include those aiming to:

• Deploy self-contained, solar-powered Internet access kiosks to rural African areas,
• Provide Internet access to and training for virtual classrooms and educational material to underprivileged children in Pakistan,
• Propose a solution to the problem of identity theft and fraud relating to academic transcripts and diplomas, and
• Educate senior citizens and the disabled in Harlem, New York City.

Internet Society Community Grants are awarded twice each year.  The next round of the programme will open on 1 March 2010.

Additional information is available about the Community Grants Programme and this round of award-winning projects.