Bio
Michelle Thorne (@thornet) is working towards a fossil-free internet. She is a senior advisor to the Green Web Foundation after 12 years at the Mozilla Foundation, where she served as Sustainable Internet Lead and established a catalyst fund for digital rights and climate justice. Michelle publishes Branch, an online magazine written by and for people who dream about a sustainable internet, which received the Ars Electronica Award for Digital Humanities in 2021.
She is also a co-organizer of Open Climate and co-led a PhD program on Open Design of Trust Things (OpenDoTT) with Mozilla and Northumbria University.
Michelle founded the Mozilla Festival, Mozilla’s Open Internet of Things Studio, Ding magazine, and a web literacy program called Maker Party. Michelle managed the Creative Commons international affiliate network from 2007 – 2010. She is a council member of the Billion Seconds Institute, a member of ClimateAction.Tech, a network of tech workers accelerating climate action. and co-founded a sustainable fashion label, Zephyr Berlin.
Find Michelle throughout the web as @thornet: Mastodon, Twitter and Github.
Email: michelle at thegreenwebfoundation dot org
Projects and Publications
- Intersections of Digital Rights and Climate Justice (2022). A collection of research for grantmaking at the intersection of digital rights and climate justice. Commissioned in collaboration with Mozilla, the Ford Foundation and Ariadne Network.
- Gathering for a Sustainable Internet (2021). A convening for digital rights, climate justice, and open/green technology practitioners.
- Branch: A Sustainable Internet for All (2020-). An online magazine written by and for people who dream of a sustainable and just internet for all. Recipient of the Ars Electronica Award for Digital Humanity. Exhibited at the V&A. Edited by Michelle Thorne and Chris Adams.
- State of Responsible IoT (2020). Article on “Trustworthy AI and the Climate Crisis” by Michelle Thorne and Fieke Jansen published in ThingsCon’s annual report.
- Museum of the Fossilized Internet (2019). By Gabi Ivens in collaboration with Joana Moll. Commissioned by Michelle Thorne and Cathleen Berger through Mozilla’s Reimagine Open.
- Our Friends Electric: Reflections on Advocacy and Design Research for the Voice Enabled Internet (2019). Rogers, J., Thorne, M., Jain, A., , et al. ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, i.E.
- Anatomy of an AI System (2018). By Vladan Joler and Kate Crawford. Acquired to the permanent collection of the V&A and MoMA. Commissioned by Michelle Thorne and Jon Rogers through Mozilla’s Open IoT Studio.
- Our Friends Electric (2017). By Superflux: Jon Ardern (Script), Anab Jain (Direction), Matthew Edgson (Production), Vytautas Jankauskas (Sound), Loraine Clark and Martin Skelly (Prototypes). Commissioned by Michelle Thorne and Jon Rogers through Mozilla’s Open IoT Studio.
- Ding magazine (2017, 2019). A magazine about the Internet and things. Issue 1: Craft edited by Michelle Thorne and Jon Rogers. Issue 2: Futures edited by Julia Kloiber.
- Superrr Feminist Tech Fellows (2018). By Julia Kloiber at Superrr Lab. Commissioned with Mozilla’s Open IoT Studio.
- Trustable Technology Mark (2018). By Peter Bihr at ThingsCon. Commissioned by Michelle Thorne and Jon Rogers through Mozilla’s Open IoT Studio.
- Residency in Motherhood (2017). A self-directed residency during my parental leave to explore small utopias.
- Digital Design Weekend at the V&A (2017). Curated by Irini Papadimitriou. Contributed to exhibitions and its publication, Bridging Open Borders.
- Professional Knowledge and IoT (2017). By Ame Elliott at Simply Secure. Commissioned by Michelle Thorne and Jon Rogers through Mozilla’s Open IoT Studio.
- View Source Shenzhen (2017). By Peter Bihr, ThingsCon and The Incredible Machine. Research and collaboration through Mozilla’s Open IoT Studio.
- Unbox Caravan Field Notes: The Craft Edition (2017). Curated by Babitha George at Unbox Labs and Jon Rogers at Mozilla Open IoT Studio.
- We all live in the computer now: NetGain paper on society, philanthropy & Internet of Things (2017). By Mark Surman and Michelle Thorne.
- Zephyr Berlin (2016). A sustainable clothing label with Peter Bihr and Cecilia Palmer that makes pants that look great, perform and travel well, and are built to last for years. Successfully funded on Kickstarter.
- Practices for a Healthy Internet of Things (2016). By Jon Rogers, Martin Skelly and Michelle Thorne.
- Connected Communities and Digital Futures (2016). Curated by Unbox Labs Caravan and Mozilla Open IoT Studio.
- The Good Home Project (2016). Curated by Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino. Exhibited at Milan Fuori Salone with Peter Bihr and Iohanna Nicenboim.
- Understanding the Connected Home (2015). Book co-authored with Peter Bihr.
- An Open Web (2011). By Adam Hyde, Alejandra Perez, Bassel Safadi, Christopher Adams, Mick Fuzz, Jon Phillips, and Michelle Thorne.
- “Capturing the Commons: (Ways Forward for) The CC Case Studies Initiative” (2009). Thorne, Michelle and Cobcroft, Rachel. Free Culture Research Workshop, Harvard Law School.