[SlugBug] OSI grants for civil society ICT tools

[Bill Best]

i don't think we've had enuf emails today  :o)

anyway, any OSS developers out there who think they have an idea worth 
$500,000 to George Soros should read on.

cheers

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Grants for social software development
13 Jul 2003 » ICT Toolsets
http://www.soros.org/ip/item_doc.php?type=4&area=18&id=158

Request for Proposals (deadline - September 30)

September 30, 2003: Application deadline
December 1, 2003: Results announced

contact: toolsets at osieurope.org

The OSI Information Program is pleased to issue a request for project
proposals for its ICT Toolsets initiative. This initiative seeks to 
advance and support open society principles and practices by funding the
development of software tools designed to meet the mission objectives of
civil society organizations and actors.

Sectors of interest:
* human rights
* legal services for disadvantaged groups
* NGO support
* independent news media
* anti-corruption
* public health (disease and issue-specific)

Application categories:
* situation/case monitoring (domestic violence, human rights, etc)
* case management
* knowledge management
* advocacy/campaign management
* data mining, analysis, visualization
* collaboration
* metadata management (ontologies, semantic web)
* secure communications or web surveillance/censorship monitoring tools

Excluded sectors and categories:
* administrative tools (e.g. accounting, grant management)
* eGovernment software
* education and training software

Criteria for funded toolsets:
* Proposed toolsets must directly contribute to the social missions of
civil society organizations and initiatives. Tools developed for 
commercial applications that can be adapted to promote the mission 
objectives of civil society organizations will be considered.

* A project team may apply for support at any stage of toolset creation;
teams in the process of development are encouraged to apply for funds to
complete and promote their toolsets.

* Given the wide variety of content management systems currently 
available, proposals for these systems will not be considered unless 
they respond to a significant, unmet need.

* Project proposals should fall between $50,000 and $200,000.

* The project proposal should include a support and sustainability 
strategy beyond the grant period.

* Both end-user and developer documentation for the software is required 
by the end of the grant cycle. Please make sure to include the time and 
cost for this in the proposal where appropriate.

* Each proposal must identify a group of end-users who will test the
software before final release. Proposals should clearly detail the 
expected user population, focusing on the scenarios and circumstances 
under which the toolset would be best used.

* Each proposal must include a detailed budget and timeline. Please be
certain to specify appropriate resources for the software?s completion,
full testing, and documentation.

* Open source projects with an active development community and approved
Open Source Initiative licensing are preferred.

* Software must be based on Unicode encoding to support localization in
non-Latin character sets.

* Application development team with prior software development and
implementation experience preferred.

* Projects that encourage standards compliance and interoperability are
preferred. Please be sure to note this in section four of the proposal if
applicable.

* Projects that have additional funding are preferred.

* Toolsets may be desktop, client-server, or peer-to-peer applications.


Proposal format:
The proposal should be no more than ten pages [2500 words] and include the
following information:
1. Sector of interest and application category
2. Abstract/overview (1-2 paragraphs only)
3. Detailed description of project
4. Description of technology involved
5. Description of user group, including expected location(s) and use
scenarios
6. Description of civil society application for project
7. Description of team, including countries of origin and previous software
development experience
8. Budget/timeline
9. Co-funders (if any)

Evaluation:
Proposal reviewers will have experience in both software development and
deployment and the civil society environment.

Grant applicants will be notified of decisions no later than December 1st,
2003.

Please send all project proposals to toolsets at osieurope.org by September
30th, 2003.