** NOW OPEN FOR APPLICATIONS **
We are excited to announce the creation of a fund to accelerate the Safe Network rollout and adoption. A strong secondary goal of this fund is to encourage “competition” for core development by offering rewards, therefore diluting the reliance on MaidSafe.
The fund is intended to be used for initiatives which will either directly help in Network rollout or build a user base for the Safe Network once live (which may include 3rd party app development atop Safe).
To achieve these goals, the committee will take a business approach and allocate funds to pay for professional expertise and work that will accelerate the launch of the Network. A fund committee will assess each application on the basis of its value in achieving this aim, in line with the project’s overall objectives and the Network Fundamentals.
Note: funds will be allocated for strictly professional expertise and associated costs only, not for activities such as listing coins on exchanges, or for paid promotions of coins/products.
This fund was suggested by a member of the community and has been created with a hugely generous donation of 1000ETH.
Purpose
- To enhance the pace of deployment of the Safe Network.
- To encourage and incentivise core development of the Safe Network external to the MaidSafe team.
- To build a user base around the Safe Network.
- To encourage application developers on the Safe Network.
Also note that 5% of all funds will be allocated to the MaidSafe Foundation for education and innovation. The MaidSafe Foundation is a registered Scottish Charity with the aim of supporting learners of all ages to develop their knowledge, skills and abilities in a variety of subjects.
Management
The fund is managed by a committee consisting of a subset of MaidSafe staff, and multiple volunteer community members.
Fund committee
The fund committee have now been put in place and with applications to join it closed as of 25th March 2021.
The committee consists of circa 3 members of the MaidSafe team, depending on their workload, and 9 volunteers from the community.
We don’t anticipate requiring any more volunteers for the committee.
Note that being a member of the committee excludes you from being a beneficiary of the fund at the same time (you could drop out of the committee if you wished to apply to the fund).
If committee members wish to remain anonymous to anyone outside the committee then we will respect that.
Each committee member will review applications with the intention of acting in good faith to select those that meet the fund’s criteria to take the Safe Network forward, and which they believe is good use of these finite funds.
We intend to decide on applications with majority rule principle of the committee votes.
Funding
The fund has been initiated by a well-respected community member. Should anyone wish to, you can also support this fund by making payments to any of the addresses below, should you be in a position to do so:
Eth : 0x23231a18748bA63de9908331173894f343719a59
Btc : bc1qwkxjx3vd24ansc07jzcrdn99zr9nf8cverav6c
Omni/Maid : 1MLRhWfaMbKb8xxSoHwPgZhEdyxWrDmY7N
Beneficiaries
This fund will directly pay for people’s time and expertise only. As payments are made, we will not expose the amounts paid to each individual, but we will provide breakdowns of the areas in which funds have been allocated. These could, for example, be CRDT consulting, network consulting, security audit, and so on. MaidSafe staff members will not be beneficiaries, either directly or indirectly.
Openness
To the best of our ability and in accordance with any laws, both financial and privacy, this fund will be open and transparent to all community members. However, we will never disclose any salary/payments to directly identifiable individuals outside the committee members.
Applications
As of 31st March 2021, the BambooGarden fund committee would like to invite applications for funding in the following areas only:
- Formal documentation
We believe the project would benefit hugely from having our algorithms formally documented. Perhaps a technical writer or the like who has experience writing formal algorithms and papers would be able to offer value here. Having these formal documents in place helps onboard developers who are getting involved, while also helping external auditors who we would at some point be asking to check our code for security flaws, bugs, etc. - Additional CRDT expertise
- Additional consensus expertise
- Additional networking expertise
These initial areas have been identified as a priority by MaidSafe and agreed with the committee. We would like to restrict applications to these specific areas for now to help funnel the applications at a steady rate for the volunteer fund committee members, while also helping us compare and assess applications for the same or similar projects.
We look forward to receiving applications to the fund, however, these must be supplemented by a cohesive and exhaustive plan in order to be seriously considered.
To apply, you can fill out this online form, or if you prefer you can email your plan and application to bgf@maidsafe.net.
If you submit via email, please include a summary of your idea and how it helps achieve the fund’s goals, a detailed plan on how you intend to implement this idea, and the expected costs of this proposal that you would like the fund to cover.
We would also love to see short video presentations, maximum 10 minutes, included as part of applications. A video presentation would help the committee evaluate these applications so we encourage them where possible, but they are not mandatory. Applicants may also make these videos widely available on the forum, if they wish, but we understand some may not want their ideas made public.
We anticipate that funds will be paid out for successful applications either on final delivery, or on reaching agreed milestones on the way towards delivery, with evidence required that those milestones have been met.
Each application will be evaluated not only on whether it meets the fund’s purposes, but also on whether it provides value for money.
While we cannot guarantee we will accept every application, we do encourage as many as possible.
Orphan Ideas, Nominations, etc
Not everyone has the time or skill set to execute an idea that they have, and likewise not everyone with time and a specific skill set has the right ideas to match. Use this forum thread to see if we can match donated ideas with the right people.
Would you like to nominate/recommend someone, either from within or outside the community, to be hired via this fund to take on a specific task? We want to hear what you propose and why you think it would work!
Maybe you would like input from other forum members to gauge initial reactions to your idea, talk through it and improve it further, or to help fully plan it out? This and related forum threads would be a good place to make an initial post with an outline of your idea for others to see.
We look forward to reviewing your applications and ideas, and to push the Safe Network forward. Watch out for the further announcements detailing the next areas we are looking for applications in, and the general progress of the fund.
