A season, an NGI Sargasso open call. In our previous News Wave, the Spring flowers blossoming brought you the opportunity to get up to €100,000 equity-free funding with our Open Call 3 that closed on the 15th of May. Now that we are in Summer, the Sargasso Sea currents are the ones bringing you these €100,000 equity-free funding with our Open Call 4, launched on the 3rd of June and accepting applications until the 1st of August.

We will tell you more about our fourth funding opportunity in a bit, but first let’s comment the results of our third call: 73 innovators applied willing to create an Internet of Trust, most of them coming from France, Spain and Italy.

Join our last Open Call 4 Info Webinar and Matchmaking Session on the 9th of July

Let’s go back to those €100,000 equity-free funding of our Open Call 4. To discover how to secure them, join us the next Tuesday 9th of July at 16:00 CEST / 09:00 CDT in the last Info Webinar and Matchmaking Session that we will host.

The session will consist of three parts:

  1. In the first part, we will feature an overview of the available benefits, the application process, and the selection criteria of Open Call 4.
  2. In the second part, some beneficiaries from our Open Call 1 will present their projects and share their experiences during the NGI Sargasso OnCampus Program, followed by a Q&A with attendees.
  3. In the third part, you will be able to join a dedicated matchmaking session to help you find your US/Canada/Europe partner.

Don’t miss this opportunity to gain valuable insights and connect with potential collaborators. REGISTER NOW!

The NGI Sargasso Open Call 4 – Apply before the 1st of August

The reason why we are organizing the webinar on the 9th of July is because we are accepting proposals from Internet innovators until the 1st of August under our Open Call 4.

Why should you apply? Here you have some reasons:

Enter one of our capacity-building programs:

  • 9-month program with up to €100,000 equity-free funding.
  • 6-month program with up to €75,000 equity-free funding.
  • 3-month program with up to €50,000 equity-free funding.

Get comprehensive support, such as mentoring, coaching, and access to leading tech conferences and innovation summits.

Access a dynamic community of over 3,000 Internet innovators: the Next Generation Internet Initiative Community.

We are looking for startups and SMEs, universities and RTOs, and NGOs and foundations from Europe, the US and Canada working on topics such as trust and data sovereignty, digital identity, internet architecture renovation, decentralized technologies, and standards.

Since we will need to evaluate the projects submitted in our Open Call 4, we also launched a new Call for Evaluators. You can submit your evaluator profile until the 19th of July if you are European or from any Horizon Europe associated countries, a scientist or business expert from academia or industry, and have experience in evaluating proposals for the European Commission or similar.

Discover our Open Call 2 Innovators

9 are the ideas that were selected in our second open call that you can now check in our NGI Sargasso Innovators Portfolio:

  1. DPP-CRC: Digital Product Passport for Carbon-Reduced Concrete.
  2. DES: Decentralized Electronic Signature using Blockchain based Digital Identity.
  3. GUARDIAN: Detection and Recovery from Ransomware for Attacks to Data in Motion.
  4. HPQCSSI: Hybrid Post-Quantum Cryptography Self-Sovereign Identity Stack.
  5. Melisseus: Large Language Models as Defensive Honeypots.
  6. RSFA: Rosseta Stone for APIs.
  7. SIDIHub: Sustainable & Interoperable Digital Identity.
  8. Trustless Democracy: Decentralized Digital Sovereign Identity and Voting System using Blockchain Technology.
  9. VeriRecruit: AI-Driven Interview Analysis for Precision Hiring.

One of them, Alexandru Panait, from AI Professional Software Solution (Romania) has created the world’s first platform offering public administration as a service and has digitized public institutions in Romania with Gov-Smart. Alexandru was selected with the projects DES and Trustless Democracy to count with the support of NGI Sargasso.

While working at our 9-month OnCampus Program, with Gov-Smart, he has launched an innovative solution that promises to transform public administration in Romania through complete digitization and advanced automation.

Meet the NGI Sargasso Ecosystem

Since May 2024, we are actively collaborating with the EU-funded project FORGING, promoting a human-centered methodology for Industry 5.0.

FORGING proposes a pioneering methodology based on a value-sensitive innovation process to promote technological paths that are attentive to the environment and society. The project is focused on the human being in parallel with the technical context of Industry 5.0. To maximize the impact of the proposed action plan, FORGING acts in parallel as a hub for synergies, serving as a platform where projects with aligned missions can communicate with relevant stakeholders.

Our ecosystem keeps growing with innovators and partners joining us in our mission of creating an Internet of Trust with a human-centric approach!

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That is all for our sixth wave of NGI Sargasso news, to which we invite you to subscribe here.

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This newsletter was originally published on NGI Sargasso LinkedIn.