Can you believe we already launched the last of our five NGI Sargasso open calls?

In September, the back at school meant for us back at our open calls. In fact, on the 23rd, we launched our Final Open Call 5 that will be accepting applications until the 25th of November 2024. As in our previous open calls, we’re pumped to invite innovators from the European Union, United States, and Canada to team up and shake up the Next Generation Internet!

As usual, we offer two info webinars and matchmaking sessions per call, the second and last happening tomorrow at 16:00 CET / 10:00 CDT, and we kindly invite you to join it. Why?

Because during the session, you will discover how to get up to €100,000 equity-free funding to create an Internet of Trust and find potential partners across the Atlantic.

Besides, the NGI Sargasso team will provide you with:

  1. All the information you need to know to submit a successful application: requirements, applications process, selection criteria, calendar, etc.
  2. The opportunity to meet two of our NGI Sargasso Innovators selected in our previous open calls, to ask them all your questions: Raúl Reinosa Simón from GUARDIAN (Open Call 2) and George Xylomenos from SNDS (Open Call 1).
  3. A dynamic matchmaking session in different virtual rooms to help you find your Transatlantic partner -we only accept team applications EU+US, EU+CA or EU+US+CA.

Don’t miss it, and:

At NGI Sargasso we aim to create a space where EU-US, EU-Canada or EU-US-Canada tech breakthroughs can come together by changing the game regarding Next Generation Internet technologies, services, and standards, all while keeping things human-centric on topics such as trust and data sovereignty, digital identity, internet architecture renovation, decentralized technologies, and standards.

So, what’s in it for you if you get picked? Loads of good stuff:

  • Up to €100,000 in funding, no strings attached -for this final call, the total budget available is up to €1.200.000.
  • Mentoring and coaching to help you level up.
  • An up to 9-month Capacity-Building Program to dive deep, but you can choose if you prefer 3 or 6 months, instead of 9.
  • Access to a whole community of NGI – The Next Generation Internet innovators.
  • Matchmaking activities to find your partner or partners across the Atlantic.

This is your last opportunity to innovate across borders and bring your idea to life, since NGI Sargasso won’t launch any more calls! Don’t let it slip away, and:

Also, in case you feel curiosity about the results of our previous Open Call 4, closed last August 2024, 75 game-changers proved that they felt ready to build the next generation Internet for humans, applying from 22 different countries.

Discover our Open Call 3 Innovators

It was the 15th of May 2024 when the NGI Sargasso project closed its Open Call 3 with 73 submitted proposals of Transatlantic teams willing to create a more human-centric Internet for our future generations.

Each one of the submitted applications were carefully reviewed by external evaluators to finally select 11 of them who joined the NGI Sargasso Innovators Portfolio. They started their Transatlantic journey onboarding the NGI Sargasso OnCampus Program on the 5th of September 2024 to enjoy the NGI Sargasso funding program benefits. Meet them:

  1. EeDP – Empowering eDemocracy for Peace, partnered by Yuting Jiang from Agora by ZKorum, and Brianna Cook from IoTeeDom.
  2. FVCP – Facilitate Verifiable Credentials Presentation Across Borders, partnered by Julien Bringer from Kallistech, and Kaliya Hamlin from Identity Works, LLC.
  3. SafeMode – Empowering Commercial Drivers: Harnessing Next Generation Internet to Enhance Safety, Trust, and Environmental Sustainability, partnered by Ido Levy from SafeMode, and David Still from Innovative Captive Strategies.
  4. NG Docu Vault – Next Generation Docu Vault, partnered by Sarra-Maryam Fezzani from HORA e.V., and Karim L. F. from Fezzani Muszynski Société d’avocats / Juris Canada Droit de l’immigration.
  5. LeLink – LeLink, partnered by Sarra-Maryam Fezzani from HORA e.V., and Karim L. F. from Fezzani Muszynski Société d’avocats / Juris Canada Droit de l’immigration.
  6. GALICIA – Generative AI with Cybersecurity for Internet Applications Development, partnered by Christian Violi from Novareckon, and Jérémie Farret from Mind in a Box.
  7. EVI US Pilot – Electric Vehicle Identity US Pilot, partnered by Christos Stefanatos from EV Loader, and Hadji Dimitri from Mega Contracting Group.
  8. TruPS – Enhancing Trusted Transatlantic Data Processing and Storage with Fully Homomorphic Encryption, partnered by Kruno Milicevic from Random Red Ltd., and Diogo Oliveira from Pennsylvania State University – Beaver Campus.
  9. GMM – A Global Market Maker for Decentralized Token Exchanges, partnered by Marcelo Bagnulo Braun from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, and Francisco Peñaranda from The City University of New York – Queens College.
  10. POSIDONIA – POSition Information with Digital Twin Offloading in Trustworthy Next-Generation Internet Applications, partnered by Marco Martalo’ from Università degli Studi di Cagliari, and Flavio Esposito from Saint Louis University.
  11. IOTPAY – Internet of Things Payment System, partnered by Benoît Maïsseu from WERENODE, and Rajesh Murthy from GAPASK Inc.

Discover more about them here.

The NGI Sargasso Inspirational Talks

“Software in the European Regulatory Landscape” was the title of the NGI Sargasso Inspirational Talk offered by Daniel Thompson-Yvetot, NGI influencer, Co-Founder of Tauri and CEO of CrabNebula, and an NGI Sargasso supportive partner, to the NGI Sargasso innovators from the Open Call 1 and Open Call 2, as part of their 9-month OnCampus program activities.

“Is the European regulatory landscape in software protecting the most vulnerable?” was one of the may questions answered during his talk.

NGI Sargasso at the 6th Open Search Symposium (OSSYM 2024)

The Open Search Symposium 2024 (OSSYM24) brought together the Open Web Search community in Europe for the sixth time, and NGI Sargasso attended it to network with the open search ecosystem and other NGI-funded projects: NGI Search and OpenWebSearch.eu.

In this picture, you can see Megi (Maggie) Sharikadze (Head of Research at Leibniz Supercomputing Centre) and Stefan Voigt (Open Search Foundation) from Open Web Search; Sara Abu and Laura Argilés (Project Manager and Marketing Manager at AUSTRALO respectively), representing NGI Sargasso; and Mirko Presser (Associate Professor at Aarhus University) from NGI Search.

Our partner AUSTRALO was there to join the discussions, while getting insights from the ecosystem’s researchers, policy-makers and other relevant stakeholders about Next Generation Internet Transatlantic cooperation.

Meet the NGI Sargasso Ecosystem

NGI Sargasso is happy to announce our Supportive Partner StandICT.eu, an EU-funded project fostering the participation of European experts in international ICT standardization.

We signed a collaboration framed with a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), targeting to leverage both projects’ engagements and contributions to international standardization to create an Internet of Trust with a human-centric approach according to the values of the Next Generation Internet (NGI) Initiative.

In fact, they are looking for applicants for their their 6th open call to obtain financial support for their activities on ICT standards in several domains, including Virtual Worlds, Digital Product Passport, AI, Blockchain, and more. Hurry up and submit your idea before next Monday the 4th of October!

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This newsletter was originally published on NGI Sargasso LinkedIn.