Educational Programs

How AdTech works — Improving public awareness of AdTech and privacy

The web has become a place where visiting a webpage triggers many effects elsewhere on the globe, and where advertising technology has morphed into a market driven surveillance ecosystem of a size that was unimaginable even a few decades ago. While especially older people may still think of the 'friendly' world wide web of the nineties, the reality is that underneath the surface of many web pages lies a dark technology layer that sprawls data. "How AdTech works" is a project by the European umbrella of digital rights organisations, EDRi. The goal of EDRi is to address the threat these developments hold for our online lives and the shared public spaces. EDRi wants to de-mystify and challenge the complex and secretive world of online advertising and profiling - and bring attention to these issues at a policy level.

With upcoming platform regulation like the pending EU Digital Services Act (DSA), there is an urgent need to share insights among human rights defenders, academics and the public at large. We need a concerted effort to take on this challenging subject - in order to better understand and subsequently challenge invasive and exploitative monopolistic practices that lead to aggravations of polarisation, spread of disinformation, and other abuses of fundamental rights.

EDRi will engage with legislative efforts across Europe as an opportunity to better protect people’s rights online against data-hungry, abusive business models.

EDRi will support this work via creation of a publication on AdTech and online advertising booklet, which will be distributed among policy makers, human rights defenders and the broader public.

>> Read more about How AdTech works

CodeYard — Open-Source software development for students in secondary education

Computer Science is a growing subject in secondary education (12-to-18-year old students). In 2007 it will become a core profile course for the Dutch high school curriculum. The CodeYard project aims to draw students to the production of Open Source Software (OSS). Students can use the infrastructure and expertise of the CodeYard project to produce OSS, which can be passed on to future generations of students. This should lead to a wider use of OSS.

>> Read more about CodeYard

Democratic SendComm — Easy to use connected open hardware device

Decocratic SenComm is an open hardware LoRaWAN capable device, aimed at the educational sector. The subgigaherz LoRa network and the IP networked LoRaWAN can be used to transmit data at relatively large distances with very simple commodity infrastructure, and Democratic SendComm is therefore for instance suitable for measurement data from actuators and sensors in low-bandwidth scenario's. The whole design is available under the CERN HW license.

>> Read more about Democratic SendComm

Explain Direct — Providing effective and efficient access paradigms for open educational material

Open source technical solutions for analyzing, recommending, and querying open educational materials within the context of higher education

>> Read more about Explain Direct

GO-FOSS — Teach employees in SMEs and NGOs the benefits of FOSS

The main goal of this project is to develop a group of skilled professionals on FOSS within the community of SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) and NGOs (large Non Governmental Organizations).

>> Read more about GO-FOSS

SchoolLan — computer networking as education support for primary schools

The foundation SchoolLan ceased its activities officially on October 31, 2006. On the moment, no-one is working on a new release. The last release 5.2.0 was made in September 2004.

SchoolLan brings an Internet infrastructure to Dutch primary schools. Pupils and teachers can get access to e-mail and websites with minimal effort. The systems are pre-configured to fit best in the school environment.

SchoolLan has been developed to allow (remote) technical management within in a (technically naive) school environment. The design and configuration can easily be duplicated by similar educational institutions elsewhere. In other words, SchoolLan is a blueprint: a technical configuration/network design model.

>> Read more about SchoolLan

ThinkQuest — educational web contests

Foundation ThinkQuest organized web-games for various target communities: primary school pupils, secondary schools, and even vocational training students. All contests are in Dutch only.

>> Read more about ThinkQuest

TOS;DR — A user rights initiative to rate and label website terms & privacy policies

Terms of service are often too long to read (reading all of these carefully wrought documents could quite literally cost you years of your life), yet it is very important to understand what is in them. After all, your actual legal position online depends on them in a very concrete way. The ratings from TOS;DR can help users get informed about their rights.

>> Read more about TOS;DR

TwinSite-2000 — international web-competition for secondary schools

International web-competition for secondary schools, where a Dutch school has to partner with a foreign school in creating a website on any topic of choice.

>> Read more about TwinSite-2000