The Open Technology Fund was created in early 2012. Following the conclusion of its first year of operation, OTF sought to compile some of the anti-censorship accomplishments the program supported to date. These accomplishments help demonstrate the impact of OTF’s support for Internet freedom projects. We provide a small subsection of these accomplishments below, while noting that all projects have had significant accomplishments with the support provided by OTF.
From a pure user impact perspective:
- Over 1 million people a month use OTF supported tools to increase their communication safety
- Over 40 of the world’s languages and dialects including Arabic, Farsi, Korean, Tibetan, Vietnamese, and Mandarin are translated for use by OTF projects
- More than 500,000 people monthly use secure online chat applications supported by OTF
From a tool creation and expansion perspective:
- Creation of the first open-source Mobile Human Rights Reporting tool
- Creation of the first open-source secure Mobile Reporting Application
- Deployment of safe and secure voice communication available to all African smartphone users
- Activation of the first high capacity Tor node to South East Asia
From a program operation perspective:
- Begun extensive security audits performed on all OTF supported projects to identify and mitigate potential vulnerabilities that could put end-users at risk
- Full and public disclosure of OTF’s financial expenditures and programmatic vision published in OTF’s 2012 Annual Report
- Supporting State Department and other public funded projects with in-kind donations for use of OTF shared cloud infrastructure for Internet freedom
OTF looks forward to building on these accomplishments in the upcoming year.