•Up to Rs. 50,000 in funding over six months.
•Professional coaching in user-centered design, project management, security and business, and mentorship by our expert network.
•Media outreach through our network.
Beyond offering the above, our goal is to grow a network of civic tech projects. During the project term, we’ll connect the participants with investors, potential partners and othersupport programs. Sustainability is very important to us and we want to help student-participants secure long-term support for their projects.

Public Interest Tech:building digital tools for citizens, e.g.
•New models or applications for creating, sharing and using (open) data
•Data visualization and storytelling
•Social engagement, transparency and citizen participation

Yes, you can. However, your proposal ought to be clearly defined and and have its own degree of novelty, e.g. you plan to expand or enhance yourpreexisting project with a new module. In any case, you need to make clear what you will be working on during the 6-month project term

The jury will pay particular attention to the following:
•Does the project belong in the field promoted by the Prototype Fund; does is perhaps address the focus topic of the round?
•Scope and social impact of the project – How many people benefit from your project?
•Innovation – How new and exciting is your idea?
•Realizability – Do you have the necessary skills to implement the idea, and is the idea realizable within 6 months?

The maximum grant of Rs. 50,000 is calculated on the basis of the total working hours of a full-time job for one person, i. e. 500 working hours at an hourly rate ofmax. Rs. 100 for the entire 6 month period.
As a full-time student, you should not work more than 3 hours per day on this project.
Important: The stated number of hours must be in reasonable proportion to the project idea. Think in advance about the time you will need to invest in order toimplement the proposed prototype. Realistic planning of the project scope is also one of the jury’s evaluation criteria.

The software has to be published under an open source license. The code needs to be publicly accessible (through, for instance, a public GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket repository). We recommend using the MIT license.

The Prototype Fund is also a research program: It is important to us to be in active exchange with our projects in order to understand even better how developers cooperate, how innovation is created, and where we can particularly support you on this path. For this reason, there will be update calls every four weeks, short written updates every two weeks, two more detailed interim meetings, and a sustainability evaluation – either in person or over the phone, depending on where
you live. We ask all projects to take the exchange seriously as well, because it allows us to address problems more quickly and help you when needed.

The grant will be paid in instalments based on the work carried out at the beginning of each month.

At the end of the 6-month project term we invite all teams to take part in a demo day, which serves to present results/prototypes and to discuss achievements, challenges, and problems. Aside from the teams, we also invite selected guests to take part. All projects will be featured on our website. During the project term we will connect you with mentors, sponsors, and other participants. As a part of the Prototype Fund network, you will remain closely connected to the program even after your project term has ended. Apart from publishing your code in one of the repositories, you will need to write a short and clear project report that will be published as well.

Yes.

No, the work done cannot be double-counted under FOSS Prototype AND a course project. However, additional development on existing projects done as part of course work can be proposed for FOSS Prototype funding.

Yes, additional development on completed FOSS Prototype projects can continued as part of course work (e.g., PE, Thesis, etc.)