US-based Mozilla Foundation appoints Sunil Abraham to top role

Sunil Abraham, Executive Director of Bengaluru-based The Centre for Internet and Society, has been appointed as Vice President, VP, Leadership Programmes, at Mozilla Foundation -- a US-based non-profit organisation that leads the Open Source Mozilla project.

Abraham will start as an advisor to Mozilla's executive team and directors and will move to Berlin full-time in January 2019, Mozilla Foundation said in a statement.

"I'm thrilled to welcome Sunil Abraham. Sunil joins us from The Centre for Internet and Society, the most recent chapter in a 20 year career of developing free and open source software and an open internet agenda," Mark Surman, Executive Director of the Mozilla Foundation, said in a blog post.

Abraham first founded Mahiti, a non-profit software development shop and then The Centre for Internet and Society, a policy and technology think tank in Bengaluru.

In his new role, Abraham "will head up the programmes that bring people from around the world into our work - the Internet Health Report, MozFest, our fellowships and awards - with the aim of supporting people who want to take a leadership role in this community," Surman said.

Abraham was elected an Ashoka fellow in 1999 to "explore the democratic potential of the Internet" and was also granted a Sarai FLOSS fellowship in 2003.

Between June 2004 and June 2007, he also managed the International Open Source Network, a project of United Nations Development Programme's Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme, serving 42 countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

Mozilla Firefox is a free and open-source web browser developed by Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, Mozilla Corporation.

Firefox is available for Windows, macOS, Linux, and BSD operating systems.

--IANS

na/vd