This topic is to discuss funding opportunity for ActivityPub-related software within the European Commission’s NGI initiative. Currently there are several opportunities that were mentioned during APConf 2020 (note: other sources of funding are mentioned in that post as well):
This topic is for people, NGI0 grantees and developers willing to take a chance and get funded, to share their experience with NGI0, review each other proposals, form teams, discuss strategies, etc.
An online meeting with the DG DIGIT of the European Commission is under way around April 19th. See Webinar with the European Commission and AP Community.
What a pitty that is just software… Is there a way to fund non-technical stuff?
Update 14/05/21: Hi again, @how If this funding you promote is just about the protocol, I don’t really understand why this post is in Fediversity and Fediverse Futures categories… It’s confusing at least for me… And I think it would be better placed in AP category…
Good point.
It also seems not to be even software, they told me that they do not fund Content Management Systems. Very intransparent thing 
Have been looking through the current funding agenders and finding 90% of money is poured down the drain at best and much of the rest is feeding the libertarian/right wing who are making a strong push into #openweb because for the last 10 years the #geekproblem has been building anti-social libertarian code based on the “is no such thing as society” so why code for this thing that does not exist.
We have a problem, first a large pile of tech shit to compost, and second trying to reform the funders and #NGO that have pushed this problem for too long.
The is much that is healthy in the activertypub and fedivers but outside this is a lot of agenders and much of these are captured by the “common” sense of the dead neo-liberal thinking that makes such a mess in the non-tech world. This cam e to focus while listening to a presentation for the Wikimedia Foundation at a USA online conf yesterday.
Hey titi,
there is this Arnold who always deletes my posts,
I think, we will talk about it in the next meeting.
We made this huge lists of grants.
Maybe you find a fair one at the list.
About NGI0: I was also very astonished, what they found instead of their mandate, like private DRM passports –
For example
I am a photojournalist and each year photos worth 4.000 - 6.000€ are stolen.
While the above project would be good for my ego, it would never give me the impression that the EU should fund private passports …
The Members of the European Parliament never gave NGI0 a mandate to fund private DRM and I am also in a conversation with Commissioner Vestager.
The MEPs and also jury members encouraged me to apply because “Content Curation Experiences are much needed” but unfortunately after 2 years I got the response that Content Management Systems will not be funded.
I saw that this post was flagged, so I propose to have an official SocialCG meeting because this here is the forum of the W3C SocialCG and not of NGI0.
So, @titi I hope very much that you might find a grant on the list and if not, it is a wiki everyone can edit.
Well, no actually… I flagged two of your posts, because of language and accusations to other members, similar to the above. When flagging a post it becomes hidden, until other staff have reviewed it. At SocialHub anyone can be flagged, including mods and admins. To deal with that in a fair way there’s the Well-being team and #community:well-being forum section. I moved the last flagged post to that section, because you unethically moderated yourself and removed the flag. That, in itself is an abuse of your moderation privilege.
You told me that you would slack some time off the SocialHub to focus on your new job.
The reason why the funding topic is not in #activitypub is that the #activitypub category is to discuss the specification itself and not related topics. E.g., implementation issues usually go to #software unless they concern issues with the specification itself (e.g., groups or collections, and not a specific way of doing things in a software).
Dropped into the events for this Reimagine the Internet | Knight First Amendment Institute if you won’t an example of pouring hundreds of millions of $$$ down the drain the Knight foundation is it. This is normal, but by doing this they shaped the agender of the #openweb for the last 10 years, this is a problem.
This is an interesting challenge
Looking at this event https://2021.ngiforum.eu Way to meany stuffed shirts, technological fantasists (blockchain) and a lot of #EU money what could go wrong…
Spent a hour looking through the list of participants opening in new tab all that said something interesting. Of these more than 2/3’s had the tag blockchain so closed them, and then looked at the rest, then closed them… as we all know the is little hope in places like this, but worth a look, sometimes you find something useful. Someone has to turn over the tech shitpile to make compost.
Last week attended the online event by the Knight Foundation (huge #openweb funders for the last 10 years) in the USA on #reimagining the Internet. It was 100% about the #dotcons kinda nutty how bad things are in the funded #NGO #openweb world
With this in mind I moved the #4opens to its own space Home - 4opens - Gitea: Open Media Network it’s a useful #openweb tool for moving tech projects in to the right pile.
Here are 10 sample #4opens reviews to help you to understand what its about and how you can use this simple way of judging if a project is worth supporting or not Issues - 4opens - Gitea: Open Media Network
Please add to this, sign up for the site and add more or just publish them on your own #openweb site with the hashtag #4opens
UPDATE
Why go to these events? Its about connection to people building bridges and resources for bridge building. The problem is all the resources at these events are poured down the drain and/or consumed by social parasites - the chattering classes.
I spend a bit of time going to the events every 10 years to see if this has changed. COVID-19 and the onlining of the events is a time to do this. This time, like last time, am feeling an “opening” but think the parasite classes are going to be stampeding through it. For a useful outcome we would need a soughted #openweb group to take up space, without this the opening is not going to have any good outcome.
This mythical group does not exist, there are individuals scattered about, but nothing that has much social power to be able to work with/bridge the power politics.
Kinda sad and bad but its where we are at #XR
UPDATE
This strategy can work (up to a point) to get resources, the last time, 10 years ago, I got a big chunk of dosh to set up http://visionon.tv which the remains of is funding the #OMN infrastructure. But this is another story - you can likely find articles about this back on this blog.
UPDATE
In any burocracy there are always a few people trying to get out, its what bridges are for, and there will likely be lots of people on our side who want to get in, also what bridges are for http://hamishcampbell.com/2021/04/16/outreaching-activitypub-to-the-eu-draft/ a post that touches on this bridging subject and why it has value.
UPDATE
Only now reading up on the background of this #EU stuff
"What is Horizon Europe?
Horizon Europe is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation with a budget of €95.5 billion."
No wonder the is such a feeding frenzy of pigs at the trough was wondering why this sudden interest in the #openweb
A related document is the PDF with a presentation outlining the new Horizon program in more detail (thanks @anon20068248):
@hamishcampbell I wouldn’t worry so much about what these other projects do, and waste so much text complaining about it. I mean this in a friendly way. It is a given that on any large amount of funding that is available a large amount of people try to get at it. And that many don’t share our values and principles.
Remember @darius words: “Let's Play and Win Our Own Game”. Best focus only on our solutions and the unique value they provide. All these other things are mere distractions from that, imho. If our proposition is good, we’ll be granted funds, and then if we stand out above the rest, we’ll become standard bearers and see more people flock to our cause. It’s all up to us.
It’s a bit more complex than that 
OK back to the feeding frenzy, lots of the fedivers is getting small funding, and likely the agenders that come with this funding. The cats are feeding, not a bad thing if the agenders are not too strong, which needs looking at more.
Humanism is a bit more than cats and food though, the subject of my post and blog.
This comes to mind when talking to just about everyone today “They are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.”
