Artists Make Technology (AMT)
ClosedDoris Duke Foundation (with Mozilla, Hewlett, Ford)
2026-27 window closed Mar 2; reopens ~2027
Description
Announced January 2026 by the Doris Duke Foundation with Mozilla, Hewlett, and Ford ($6.5M committed toward an $11M three-year goal). AMT centers performing artists in technology innovation across three pillars: direct artist support; infrastructure building via 'AMT Pathways' (artists work with Mozilla engineers on legal/technical/institutional tools — e.g. Responsible Computing Challenge, Mozilla Common Voice); and knowledge building.
Timeline & constraints
Key dates
- Program announcedJan 6, 2026
Constraints & requirements
- Centers performing artists — ETC fits via the 'AMT Pathways' infrastructure pillar, not as a direct artist grantee
- Program still forming; open application path unclear
- Likely partner/relationship-driven
Who's funding this
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Who runs it
- no profileSam GillPresident & CEO, Doris Duke Foundation
AI valuation
Scored against the ETC mission profile.
Artists Make Technology is an arts-and-creative-technology initiative centering performing artists, with essentially no overlap with ETC's humanitarian and human-rights mission. ETC would be a poor fit for the applicant profile the funders are seeking and would win rarely, so this is not worth the grant-writing effort. Pass — but note Mozilla/Ford/Hewlett as funders worth tracking for future, on-mission responsible-tech calls.
Criteria breakdown
AMT centers performing artists in technology innovation — arts and creative technology. This has essentially no overlap with ETC's humanitarian and human-rights focus (migration, forced labor, disaster response, cultural heritage return, traceability). The one adjacency is 'responsible computing,' which is far too thin to establish fit.
The program does fund infrastructure and knowledge building, which could nominally cover applied work, but its dollars are structured around direct artist support and artist-engineer pathways — not researcher/staff time for humanitarian tech prototyping. Award size is unspecified, adding uncertainty.
ETC is not a performing-arts organization and does not center artists; the applicant pool will be artist collectives, arts nonprofits, and creative technologists. ETC's NYU CGA + Microsoft Research backing is irrelevant to this funder's selection criteria, making it highly uncompetitive.
No deadline or clear application process is given, and ETC would have to heavily contort its work to fit an artist-centered frame — a poor use of limited grant-writing bandwidth for a low-probability bid.
A Mozilla/Ford/Hewlett relationship has some abstract value in responsible-computing circles, but pursuing an off-mission arts grant would not build reputation or capabilities that compound for ETC's core humanitarian projects.
Red flags
- Program explicitly centers performing artists — ETC is not an arts organization and does not work with performing artists
- Core AMT pillars (direct artist support, artist-engineer pathways) do not map to ETC's applied humanitarian-tech research and prototyping model
- No overlap with any of ETC's focus areas or current projects (evacuation, cultural heritage return, traceability, diplomacy)
- No stated award size or deadline, making planning and ROI assessment difficult
- Likely eligibility mismatch: applicants expected to be artists or arts-serving organizations
Scored Jul 1, 2026 · claude-opus-4-8
Proposal recommendation
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Recommendations & tips
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Funded projects to learn from
Real projects this funder backed — reference points to model and adapt an ETC proposal on.
Open, community-contributed voice dataset — an example of the artist/community-centered tech infrastructure AMT Pathways points to.
For ETC: A model for community-owned tech infrastructure ETC could help artists build.
Mozilla program embedding ethics into computing education — cited as an AMT Pathways vehicle.
For ETC: The responsible-computing framing that is ETC's natural entry point to AMT.
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