Hi everyone, unfortunately the next speaker can't make it, so we've changed the program.
She is, I think, delayed and is not in Brussels yet, instead we thought, because we have
so many funders and people who work around funding that will do a little discussions
slash Q&A about funding in general, we have quite a few organizations here who have organized
this devrim together with doing this for the first time.
Some people have even their logos, but we're going to do a small round of introductions
just so you know, which organizations are there and then we'll just take whatever questions
you have in general about the topic of funding and hope we can answer as many as possible.
I'm starting my name is Marie, I am the co-director of prototype fund, I'm here together
with my colleague, the other Marie from prototype fund, it's just an accident and we are a German
government funder funding open source mostly security and infrastructure innovation projects.
Thank you Marie, I'm Tara, I'm a technologist at the software and tech agency.
We're also a German organization funded by the German Ministry for Economy and Climate Action.
I'm here with my colleague Mirko, who's leading our sovereign tech fund program
and you'll hear more from Mirko in the next session, so I'll also talk more about our
organization and I'll hand it over to Ronny.
I thank you so much, I'm Ronny Lump, I am with a nail that's foundation.
I'm here alone because we have a buff room at one, so there's a bit of overlap.
We are running several NGO projects and also some other funds that are available.
Hello, I'm the other Mirko, I work with the next foundation and as such, we're
participating in the NGO Commons project, that's supposed to measure the impact, so basically
open technology funding on the entire program and others. We do, of course, host many projects,
but maybe for people know, is we do research programs where we assess the state of the open
source ecosystem in Europe on regular reports that are coming out every year and I participated
in that and I also have a research background in the economics of open source. So looking forward
to that discussion.
I'm sitting in the back, so I'm François, part of Probable, so Adrien is always
my colleague over there. We are building a company around Saquitland, which is a famous
Python framework for machine learning, so we're building a mission driven company where
it's picked in the by-law that we need to maintain and ship open source software for
data science and we also setting up business model around it, building support activity,
processes, activity, product, sponsorship program, so very happy to organize this room with you guys
and hear your questions around Probable, yeah, thank you very much.
Yes, so if you have a question for any of the organizations, you want to take over?
Yes, we need to not forget the last organization that has been running that this
room, unfortunately Alex from François to our friend Nation Europe cannot be here right now,
but we should mention that they've also really worked hard to help us put this together before
we take questions. So now we're taking questions. Anything funding will try to answer, of course,
funding happens in different contexts and maybe we're not the right person to answer
this specific questions, but we'll try to answer anything we can. You should know that this
microphone which doesn't make my voice louder is there for the online feed and that means we'll
have to repeat your question for the people online to hear it, so please keep your questions a bit
short so we can not spend too much time repeating questions. First question, yes, a lot of here
have managed to talk to funders and government to convince them to fund you and so you can
submit to the right people. Can you share a bit of behind the scene what goes into this kind of
conversation and if at all other people interested in lobbying to their government can do that too?
Yes, so the question is about how to talk to governments to have such funds and get such support
and what are the dynamics. I think we have very different cases of how it went. I can start with
prototype fund, maybe you can say something about STA, prototype fund was basically random panel
with a ministry and a nerd and he said, hey, be good if you'd fund open source and the person
from the ministry happened to be kind of into it and said, let's talk and then you of course need to
very quickly start being very professional for it to continue and this person got open knowledge
foundation, Germany involved, they had experience with fundraising and writing grant applications
and then very quickly it turned into a very professional thing but I think there is also a bit
of an element of finding the right people in government that will be happy to support you which we had
a lot of luck with. Thank you. Yeah, I would say also like for us it's a lot of also doing
like laying the groundwork and things of like nurses and for us work so I think for for the
sovereign tech agency we had people also like write about the importance like for example
of Felix Prader who wrote an important article about explaining why. I think he wrote a
important article about like why it's important to have something like the sovereign tech agency
also our co-founders Adriana and Fiona wrote a feasibility study that you can also see on our website
that was they the groundwork to what our concept is based on also like their experience and like
our the team's experience in building like some similar structures and similar
working similar fields so I think that's the important thing is like having like a
understanding like what the problem is talking to the right people maintainers coming to places
like here and understand what the problems are and then connecting it with solutions that are
based in evidence and presenting that case to the policy makers. Do you want to
you perspective so within a known that most of our funds come from the European Commission
and well let's start it off like in 2018 or something we did a Gardner research Gardner yes
sorry with the European Commission to identify what what was missing in Europe and
there was really a need for open source software so that's when we started off with some funds
to to to grants open source projects and well yeah new funds have come after that
because again European Commission still says that open source is is needed is very important
but however maybe at the end of this year it will not be called
and Gianni anymore next generation internet but the the funds will still be there
but with another name although well I'll show you first
can you say anything about how you work with or if you work with research funders also are
the main focus source and if there's kind of if you should if you shouldn't if this
pros are not as an issue for me yeah okay I will repeat the question and maybe you can repeat the
question the question was how we can work with research funders and we'll be basically
overlapping funding programs for open source technology and for research so the projects that I
have been working in were all combined research funding and open source funds actually more
research funding and I think it is important to understand that these programs have different
purposes and that research funding programs don't primarily aim at and outcomes that are
open technologies and that sometimes poses a problem especially towards when these projects end
there is huge enthusiasm for the participants because they want to get their papers published
and their work rate until that project ends and then there's a cliff and everybody disappears
to the next project and the outcomes of the project are in the air and if you're lucky they
develop a lot of their own but most of the time unfortunately they will not be continued to
continue to be developed and I think that's the major challenge that we should keep in mind when we
work with research programs that are time limit and specifically focused on a topic is that during
the program we already need to plan the transition project usually called like dissemination or
something where normally we say let's talk about this if people read about this but today I think
especially in combination with open technology development when you talk about how do we transition
this into a viable community that can continue when the research funding program ends we are
at the links donation thinking of this in as we said our projects and participate in grants
grant funded projects but it's been a way a new approach like we we haven't developed like the
best practices for this across the board anybody else I can represent the edge case we are
at the tech funder and the research program in one so we're funding by the federal ministry
for education in research and Germany and officially we're not a funder where research and what
we're supposed to do as open knowledge foundation is to research how to fund open source and we
happen also to fund open source while doing that it's a bit of a funny situation to be in because
you write a lot of research report but people think your funder only very frustrating for the research
people in the team I think and we also have that issue with sustainability because it doesn't matter
that much to the people when it was the fund was set up it didn't really matter that much if the
projects would be sustainable and only within years of doing research about how to fund correctly
we were able to make the topic emerge and now like in the next stage of doing that it's an interesting
combination it wasn't probably perfect at the start but I see benefits of doing both at the same time
I'll tell you also like for us research is very important it's when for example we've
been to our resilience program it was based on looking at sort of the research I was out there
on bugbondy programs which and then we found out for example there was a gap in the research
on bugbondy programs in open source so we then commissioned a research to look into these questions
because for us like we have some assumptions based on conversations with maintainers
but we wanted to also have some those assumptions also tested in scientific ways so that
and we found out that yeah we did learn a lot from that new research and it's also confirmed
on the things that we had assumed so when you were on the right track and I think that's also like
part of I think our way of doing like public research technologies to reiterate based on
science and evidence and then actually doing and then comparing the results and then coming up with
a new iteration for our programs so yeah so that's nothing it's important what research
yeah so I maybe I'll just introduce myself for this one show up here so I'm Alex from the FSE
and yeah they asked me to join us now which I'm now on here and I'm happy to take your questions
I like this question a lot the question is whether we have any advice on what
to do right in applications and what we should not be doing I think people should start by answering
the questions we ask because we ask very specific things because we have point systems internally
based on like is the person's competent and we ask what's your background we don't ask you to tell us
not the story in that field because then we cannot ask answer that question for that
project of application and there's reasons why we want to know specific things and
ask them for real like we ask for example milestones and the amount of applications we get with
one backend to front ends is way too high it's like we need to be able to understand your project
the second thing is don't try to bullshit us it's like all these like big long sentences about
the state of the world and whatever they don't have they just take space away try to come to
the point and ask the question with like W's like what are you doing why are you doing it
who are you doing it with when are you going to do it these things like be concrete is I think
the most important thing and also read the manual like don't come with like I want to
do a lot of maintenance if you're applying to an innovation fund for example like make sure you're
actually write an application that fits that one fund because otherwise you have no chances
and you're wasting your own time
yeah this I mean I can only repeat what you say but one thing to add to that is don't be
just another project because we have so many yeah but we do this better be original because
if you can do better then join the other projects yeah I think that's it yeah I want to
emphasize the fact that yeah reading the question is important because we might not notice
what it takes us sometimes weeks or months to write these questions everything is there for
reason we try to also elaborate for example through some explained text also in our like
criteria for applying what we support and what we can support what we can support just to also
like because we don't want you to go through the process if if there's not a good fit but yeah
ultimately like so the important part about looking and explaining things and not assuming
that we know things like I've been in the three for a long time I know a lot of our open source
but if don't assume that in your application that everyone reading the application will
wouldn't know it because for us it's also a being a public funder it's about also
making the case for the software like I could write the application for you I can fill in all the
plans that the left plot it's often better for that to come from you because you're the
people that know your work does then can make the best arguments for your work so don't assume
knowledge just write everything with as the questions required I maybe have one thing to add
because it's a bit the country of what you say also don't assume we don't know anything the
amount of applications we get where people describe something that exists that we use every day
and then say it doesn't exist is extremely high and we know a bit what's existing and what
not and then tell why it's different or better instead of saying it doesn't exist there are
no solutions to make lists yeah there are a lot I think like and we read a lot of applications
try to stick out I we've read 257 application in the last months at prototype funds so
you need to make sure it's actually really getting to the point to stick out I think we had a
very press pressing question there is the best practice or is that good idea to share the
winning proposals so other people can have an idea is do something like this these are the
winning proposals not just a project itself but this is the actual proposal that we're seeing
so maybe people can get an idea the same what is not the then shift way of explaining things
so we don't because there is also a personal like I'm sorry so if we share winning proposals
with people so they can learn from it we don't because there is a lot of private information in
there there's people who explain why they're like personally related to some project however
we do share selected parts of applications in a blog post like this is three good examples
for the milestones this is three good example for this so that's so we do like selected sharing
for the same reasons but luckily some of our project also developed applications in the
open so those are available for folks who might want to read them but I think that might be
useful because like everything is contextual and for us like your ability of like for us we just need
the information like your ability to run an application like your level of process not the goal here
like that's not what we're evaluating so I think there's I would say there's also like lots of room
in applications for people it's more about for us the information and the work as long as that's
presented in a in a neat way that helps us get what we want out of it then that's all we need so
yeah part of our process is that we also do some in-depth follow-up processes so we we do things
in in three rounds and in the second rounds we do some follow-up questions and
they are also like like you said of some of of personal nature so we cannot share it but what
we do share is which projects did dipwing and and what did they describe but not in a detail as in
a proposal but yes the projects which is there yes that you say that there is something like open
there's a platform called open grant for people to make their proposal by themselves and
it's not always active but it's for the video sorry just talking about open grants is a platform where
you can submit your proposals if of course funders can submit it on your behalf but you can as
of individual to that yeah I do have a question the the question is so I don't know how much you can
answer but a lot of philanthropic organization and of funding the same projects and because they
trust these people and they think that these people will do a good job and then it creates a
co-chemper and a lot of people who are outside that circle and never actually access that and we're
working on a proposal project where we are trying to work with funders to improve their
rubrics for evaluation do you think that you also have space for people to contribute to your
review system and make sure that it is actually equitable so the question is about funders that
keep funding the same projects over and over again and whether there is ways to maybe work on
processes that make it more equitable right so I think there's different types of funders
there are funders that are like gonna fund the established projects for example STA like with
the STF they do maintenance so the projects are there they're strong that's logical I think
funders like ask prototype fund we do fund a lot of people who have never been funded before
we're trying to make our process better we're always open to talking about it however our
processes are also set in stone for several years every time we get new funding for the ministry
so we don't have all the freedom to change our application process but there's still an
interesting learning because we are the type of funder that would actually fund a lot of people who
are not part of these echo chambers and with us yeah you can reapply no problem so if you
have been denied you can ask us why and how and you can learn from it and you can improve on
your next submission you have something to say about it yeah can also like for us like
because we're also not coming added from like a philanthropian logic like for us it's
we have important digital infrastructure that needs to be maintained that's work
that's work that deserves to be compensated so we look for exactly the types of projects that
need maintenance and fund people who are maintaining them and then we paid them to maintain it and
in that sense we also have two ways of getting applications and so we do have an open application
where and we also have our scouting process where we go actively and sort of identify
strategic areas or part of infrastructure that are undermined and try to find the best way of
getting resources into maintaining that infrastructure so I think it takes like this two way approach
of like pulling people in and then pushing out like support into the field so yeah
no more questions
Mirko do you want to take this? Mirko is our lead on the fellowship so that's why
yeah those the question was around our fellowship program we did last year or like the
started and the question was the survey that we did in order to inform our decisions on this one
so we reached out to our community and 530 people responded there and it was kind of a qualitative
quantitative approach maybe you ask like questions around you know drop downsides on but also
lots of free texts and that be reviewed and there was lots of very interesting parts in that
so I had like some suggestions or like some some assumptions around the program and sometimes
we just want to use those surveys to you know reconfirmed them or being proven wrong but one thing for
instance was that we feel that the open source maintainer ecosystem is very diverse and that there
is no one silver bullet and one thing was okay what if we could you know give people the possibility
to not only be funded for 40 hours a week but maybe also only for six or eight because then they could
use their Friday off to maintain the projects that they would only support on the weekend and in
the evening when the kids are around and all that stuff and actually that proved true so there were
I think one third that yeah you know what below 12 hours a week or like even only six hours
would be nice for me as well so that was one learning. We have time for one very short question
okay
twice that you would give me and especially on on the timing of like going to contact such fun because
like I'm working on a project videos in very early stages and open source project of work and connected
to this are there any kind of like aggregators of information about all of your funds as they
are at place besides searching on Google for funding and open source is there anything I can
any site I can go to such a permission and start for hacking and asking two questions for
as are the two questions are when does one start talking to funders when starting a new project
and where does one find resources about funding and funding lists
I think the funding the where does one start depends a lot on the funder mostly funders have time
lines on their websites and you'll have to do research because there's not one answer in my opinion
and there is a lot of cool funding lists that are like long URLs I don't know by heart
that we at prototype fund have all on our knowledge base so like you could find that but
generally it's like a bunch of lists on GitHub I think with good funders
yeah I mean depends on the problem like for us like if you're just starting out probably not
good we're not probably not a good fund for you because we fund the existing infrastructure
project you might be just starting working on a new infrastructure project that might be interesting
for us but or but please stop your maintenance should be something that's been there for a while at least
just one bunch of addition there's also beside the open source funds that exist there's also
what's called digital Europe that is a European fund where when you do something where you have
you know some international cooperation you can also go for funds and there's like a lot of
money that in in these type of things and they are special funds that at least from my understanding
that are going to be there for everything that is tax-orienting and it all like you know that
is in something that has more use than other sorts like in in in in in difference to for example
NGI because NGI is horizon so it's like a research fund the digital Europe is a fund that is
about you know more sustainable stuff for yeah but this is also what they can look and if you find
cooperators it's actually not so bad thank you
I'm here there's a lot of input on this question however we are out of time maybe people
meet each other and give each other tips about where to find funding thanks everyone
we're continuing in 10 minutes with the next session and already forgot the title again
combining funding fast together combining public and private efforts