[Air-l] ICT Toolsets for civil society: Request For Proposals

[RG Lentz]

Subject: Information Program ICT Toolsets: Request For Proposals

Please pass this announcement to any interested in applying for resources 
to develop software applications for the NGO environment meeting the 
following qualifications:

Request for Proposals

Information Program ICT Toolsets

July 15, 2003: RFP announced

September 30, 2003: Application deadline

December 1, 2003: Results announced

The Open Society Institute?s 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.

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RG Lentz (UT Austin)