http://openitp.org/?q=openitp_first_round_of_2013_project_funding_now_open_…
OpenITP's first round of 2013 project funding is now open for proposals!
Deadline: 31 March 2013
"OpenITP project grants are meant to support specific technical efforts
to improve users' ability to circumvent censorship and surveillance on
the Internet. "Technical" doesn't have to mean software or hardware --
for example, we also consider efforts to improve user experience through
translation, testing, projects to improve documentation, meetings that
get developers together in person to solve specific problems, etc. The
main thing we're looking for is that your proposed project is finite
(e.g. has a deadline, is scoped) and contributes to OpenITP's core
mission of enabling freedom of communication on the Internet.
We're interested in all good proposals, but note we're especially
receptive to proposals that improve user experience (UX) and in
translation (of both software and documentation). Don't take that as a
filter, though: if you have a good proposal that's not about UX or
translation, we still want to receive it.
While our grants don't have a hard limit, they tend to be in the
$5k-$30k USD range: enough to fund a specific piece of work, or to
provide seed funding for a new idea, but not enough to be a primary
long-term funding source. Therefore we try not to burden applicants with
a lot of bureaucratic overhead and paperwork to apply for a grant. It's
enough to send us a brief description of what you have in mind, and
point to public URLs for further details. Since we only fund open source
work, we expect that most proposals we receive will already have been
discussed in publicly-archived forums anyway, and perhaps written up on
a public web page -- though there may be exceptions, such as projects
that are becoming open source but aren't all the way there yet. In any
case, we're comfortable clicking on links and reading stuff on the Web.
You're not required to package everything up in one PDF to make a
proposal. Just tell us what you want to do, make it easy for us to find
what we need to find, and we'll take it from there. We'll ask you
questions as we have them."
The page also includes examples of things OpenITP funded in their last
round. Please take a look! It would be *amazing* if someone could use
this opportunity to help people read and contribute to Wikimedia safely.
--
Sumana Harihareswara
Engineering Community Manager
Wikimedia Foundation