Privacy Mode fellowship programme

Conversations around privacy and data security are increasing everyday. The government has tabled a Personal Data Protection bill in the parliament, and a Joint Parliamentary Committee has presented its report on the potential and concerns regarding privacy and personal data.

There is a need to do data privacy across domains and at scale, especially around the following themes:

1. Data protection/security practices.
2. Consent frameworks tied to purpose use limitations.
3. Data rights.
4. Encryption practices.

The Privacy Mode Fellowship programme is set in this context. The goal of the programme is to work with practitioners to document practices that can be widely adopted across the industry, and innovated upon. The programme is particularly interested in showcasing:

• Privacy-related challenges that practitioners are solving, and the context around these.
• Solutions, and evidence of how these solutions have been implemented in different organizations.
• Results achieved through the solutions - a before and after explanation of what changed, and metrics achieved.

Check out the Best Practices Guides to understand the type of topics that the Fellowship is looking at.

If this is you, apply to be a Privacy Mode fellow today.

Details

Duration of the fellowship programme: 3 months - from February to 30 April. Applications can be submitted till 21 February.

Time commitment involved: Part-time. As a Fellow, you will do your Fellowship projects alongside your day job. The programme will require between one and four hours time commitment per week to produce the output. The editorial desk will work with Fellows to set milestones and deadlines.

Expected output
Either
a. A detailed article of 1,000 to 2,000 words - with illustrations, OR
b. 2-3 videos explaining practice and learnings in sequence.

Compensation: Rs. 1,50,000 - paid in three tranches, upon completion of milestones during the Fellowship period.

Feedback and mentorship from jury: A three-member jury of experts will guide selected applicants through conceptualization and documentation stages. The jury members for the fellowship programme are:
1. Uzma Barlaskar, Head of privacy and growth at WhatsApp.
2. Anand Venkatanarayanan, Independent cybersecurity researcher.
3. Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay, Editor at Privacy Mode.

Other benefits: As a Fellow, you will receive the following infrastructure and support:

• Editorial desk with copy-editing, proof reading and graphic design resources to help you complete your outputs.
• Distribution and elevation of final outputs.

Who can apply:

1. Tech practitioners - senior engineer, product manager, engineering manager, privacy officer - who work on data governance and privacy in their organizations.
2. Individuals from academia who work on data privacy.
3. Individuals working on social impact via data privacy.

Five applicants will be selected to participate in the first batch of the Fellowship Programme.

How to apply

To apply for the Fellowship, submit the following here:

1. A statement of intent and purpose, detailing the following-

• What problem area are you solving and the context around this? As mentioned above, the Fellowship programme will cover the following themes:
  A. Data protection/security practices
  B. Consent frameworks tied to purpose use limitations
  C. Data rights
  D. Encryption practices
• A description of the solution and evidence of how it was implemented at your company.
• Results achieved through this.

2. The form in which you see the knowledge finally shaping up as - as an article or as a series of two-three explainer videos.
3. Two samples of work - written or video.
4. Your bio.

Selection process

Fellows’ will be selected on the basis of innovative approaches and solutions implemented for privacy.

The following criteria will also be applied for selecting fellows:

1. Diversity - women, trans and gender non conforming persons and individuals from marginalised social contexts will be given preference.
2. Candidates with prior speaking/writing experience.
3. Candidates with mid to senior engineering and product leadership roles will be given preference.