Article

What will the Next Generation Internet Wave Look Like? Insights from Over 100 NGI Sargasso Open Call 5 Applicants

The first part of the NGI Sargasso funding program to promote Transatlantic cooperation on Next Generation Internet technologies and services concluded last Monday, the 25th of November 2024, with the deadline to apply for our Final Open Call 5. Our last funding opportunity closed with 225 submitted applications, 104 of them being submitted. This means that 104 innovators are willing to join us in our mission of shaping an Internet of Trust with a human-centric approach for our generations to come, the highest number of our open call program.

If we analyze the data of the submitted applications, entrepreneurs found our open call especially interesting, since 64 applications came from SMEs and startups, followed by researchers, with 19 projects sent by Universities. The rest of the organizations that submitted their ideas were NGOs, with 10; Research and Technology Organizations, with 7, and Foundations, with 2. Other type of entities submitted the last 2 applications.

Regarding the geographical location, 25 different countries participated in the NGI Sargasso Final Open Call 5. France is the country most concerned about creating an Internet for Humans, with 16 applications. Its neighbor Spain follows it with 10 applications, and The Netherlands and Germany with 9. Italy and Turkey participated with 8 and 7 projects, respectively, followed by Austria and Estonia with 5 each. The rest of the 25 countries sent the remaining applications: Ireland and Slovenia 4; Belgium, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Sweden 3; Finland and Slovakia 2, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Israel, Latvia, Noway and Ukraine 1.

In our previous four calls, these numbers were slightly different:

• Open Call 1: 66 submitted projects.
• Open Call 2: 79 submitted projects.
• Open Call 3: 73 submitted projects.
• Open Call 4: 75 submitted projects.

In total, during the five open calls of the NGI Sargasso funding program, we have received 397 submitted applications.

Another difference with our previous calls is that we received 16 applications of teams made by three counterparts, meaning that these projects will be executed by one partner from Europe, together with one from the United States and one more from Canada, instead of just two partners (Europe+US or Europe+Canada), as in our first four calls.

What Comes Next after the NGI Sargasso Open Calls? Our OnCampus Programe for our Innovators, 4YFN 2025, and more!

NGI Sargasso is a funding program part of the Next Generation Internet (NGI) Initiative, fostering Europe-US/Canada tech innovation with a budget of €4.8M funding, distributed to Internet innovators through five open calls. But what comes after we close all our open calls?

After being carefully reviewed by external evaluators, NGI Sargasso selected innovators can get the following benefits:

• Secure up to €100,000 equity-free funding.
• Access to an up to 9-month OnCampus Programe with e-lessons and inspirational talks from industry experts, and services from top mentors and coches who guide them during the whole program duration.
• Invitation to join a +3,000 members community of the NGI Initiative.

NGI Sargasso will now focus on delivering the OnCampus Programe, facilitating cross-collaboration, focusing on business, rewarding excellence and showcasing achievements. Although the Open Call 1 beneficiaries have already finished their programe, the ones from Open Call 2 and 3 are still enjoying it, and the ones from the Open Call 4 and Open Call 5 are about to start it.

That is why in 2025 we will focus on mentoring and coaching the NGI Sargasso Innovators, also offering them internationalization services by attending global events such as the 4YFN 2025, the startup side event of Mobile World Congress 2025, celebrated in the Spanish city of Barcelona from the 3rd to the 6th of March. Our beneficiaries will join us in this international event and will have the opportunity to participate as speakers in a panel on the 4th of March, bringing the NGI Sargasso Transatlantic wave this time to the Mediterranean Sea. Will we see you there? Follow us on LinkedIn, X, Mastodon and BlueSky to discover more, and don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter!

by admin

NGI Sargasso Open Call 4 Results: 75 Game-Changers are Ready to Build the Next Generation Internet for Humans

On the 1st of August at 17:00 CEST (10:00 CDT), NGI Sargasso closed its Open Call 4 with 75 submitted projects to join us in our mission of creating the Next Generation Internet of Trust with a human-centric approach.

Our fourth open call received a total of 156 applications, out of which 75 were submitted and 81 were left in draft status. Out of the 75 Transatlantic projects that applied to join our funding program offering up to €100,000 equity-free funding per team, 40 were startups or SMEs, 18 were universities, 7 were Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), 5 were Research and Technology Organizations (RTOs), 3 came from other type of organizations, and 2 more applicants were foundations.

NGI Sargasso promotes transatlantic cooperation in Next Generation Internet (NGI) technologies accepting applications from cross-border teams composed of a European counterpart that leads the submission of the application, and a United States (US), or/and Canada counterpart. For the NGI Sargasso Open Call 4, projects were submitted from 22 European countries, with the top five being:

• France, with 11 applications.
• Spain and Italy, with 10 applications each.
• Germany, with 7 applications.
• Slovenia, with 5 applications.

The rest of the Transatlantic projects came from Romania (4), Belgium (3), Greece (3), Ireland (3), Finland (2), Luxembourg (2), Malta (2), The Netherlands (2), Portugal (2), Serbia (2), Austria (1), Cyprus (1), Estonia (1), Iceland (1), Latvia (1), Poland (1), and Turkey (1).

10 Challenges were Addressed at the NGI Sargasso Open Call 4

NGI Sargasso is a funding program part of the Next Generation Internet (NGI) Initiative, fostering Europe-US/Canada tech innovation with a budget of €4.8M funding, distributed to Internet innovators through five open calls. The NGI Sargasso fifth -and last- open call will be launched on the 23rd of September 2024.

After being carefully reviewed by external evaluators, NGI Sargasso selected innovators can get the following benefits:

• Secure up to €100,000 equity-free funding.
• Access to an up to 9-month Capacity-Building Program with e-lessons and inspirational talks from industry experts, and services from top mentors and coches who guide them during the whole program duration.
• Invitation to join a +3,000 members community of the NGI Initiative.
• Matchmaking services to find their Transatlantic counterpart, through our continually open Brokerage System and matchmaking webinars.

Follow us on LinkedIn, X and Mastodon to discover more, and don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter!

by admin

An NGI Sargasso Innovator Creates the World's First Platform Offering Public Administration as a Service and Digitizes Public Institutions in Romania

The NGI Sargasso Open Call 2 innovator Alexandru Panait, from AI Professional Software Solution (Romania) has founded Gov-Smart, the world's first platform offering public administration as a service, digitalizing public institutions in Romania.

Alexandru applied to our second open call, and got selected in two projects:

• DES: Decentralized Electronic Signature using Blockchain based Digital Identity, developed with VizLore LLC (USA).
• Trustless Democracy: Decentralized Digital Sovereign Identity and Voting System using Blockchain Technology, developed with Université de Sherbrooke (Canada).

While working at the NGI Sargasso 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.

By implementing interconnected modules specific to each type of institution, the company aims to automate up to 90% of public servants' work, significantly reducing repetitive tasks and improving administrative efficiency, not only in relation to taxpayers. With the Gov-Smart solution, citizens will be able to instantly obtain fiscal attestation certificates or other types of documents from any local administration connected to the service, thus eliminating waiting times and unnecessary travel. By the end of the year, the company will integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into the platform, taking automation to an impressive level of 99%.

In this scenario, public servants will become auditors and approvers of AI-prepared documents, not just executors. Moreover, internal procedures of public institutions can also be automated and personalized.

The new Gov-Smart platform includes a transparency module that displays detailed charts about public spending, performed acquisitions, and job announcements for all local administrations in Romania. Standardized forms facilitate citizens' access to information and allow them to submit requests based on Law 544 if the desired information is not available.

Gov-Smart's founder, Alexandru Panait, has extensive experience in cybersecurity, particularly in the public administration sector.

The NGI Sargasso funding program support to create Gov-Smart

Gov-Smart modernizes the existing portal e-primariaTa.ro, also founded by Alexandru Panait in 2020. With the help of European Commission funding, of up to 200,000€ (up to 100,000€ per each of his two selected projects), through NGI Sargasso, the platform is a global solution with the potential to become Romania's second unicorn.

“We are proud to launch the world's first Governance as a Service concept. To demonstrate the scalability of our solution, we have managed to integrate 3.187 local administrations in Romania into the platform, standardizing and making their activities transparent. This step represents a major leap towards efficient and transparent public administration, offering citizens quick and easy access to public interest information or obtaining documents in a very short time. We are already in discussions with authorities from other European countries and even the USA to implement this modern service,” says Alexandru Panait, Founder of Gov-Smart.

Through this innovation, Gov-Smart aims to create a business-friendly environment for investors and open new business opportunities, while ensuring an efficient, transparent, and citizen-oriented public administration, as Alexandru explained in an interview in the Romanian television.

https://youtu.be/Zlnkid8SDOk?feature=shared

Alexandru Panait also participated as a speaker at the PeakIT Conference, the first technical conference in Brașov (Romania) from the IT community to the IT community.

The NGI Sargasso selected projects: DES and Trustless Democracy

The DES project (Decentralized Electronic Signature using Blockchain based Digital Identity), under the NGI Sargasso support programme, seeks to create a groundbreaking decentralized electronic signature system using blockchain technology. Integrated with Gov-Smart, it will enable citizens to generate secure digital signatures, verified and authenticated through a robust blockchain framework. This initiative promises to revolutionize public sector transactions, offering unparalleled security, transparency, and efficiency.

Challenging the traditional concept that democracy is limited to voting every four years, the Trustless Democracy project, (Decentralized Digital Sovereign Identity and Voting System using Blockchain Technology), employs cutting-edge blockchain technology and zero-knowledge proofs to facilitate continuous, cost-free electoral participation. This initiative integrates secure digital identities and an innovative open-source voting system, designed to significantly boost citizen efficiency and involvement in democratic processes. Their first implementation will be through Gov-Smart.

You can have a look at other NGI Sargasso innovators projects to discover how they are creating an Internet of Trust.

by admin

NGI Sargasso Open Call 3 Results: 73 Innovators Willing to Create an Internet of Trust

73 is the number of submitted proposals coming from European, US and Canadian innovators willing to create an Internet of Trust. On the 15th of May at 17:00 CEST / 10:00 CDT, we closed our Open Call 3, looking for startups and SMEs, Universities and RTOs and NGOs and Foundations from both sides of the Atlantic to join us in our mission shaping a more human-centric Internet for our future generations.

Out of the 73 submitted projects from joint teams from a European country and the United States or Canada, 46 are ideas from SMEs and startups; 11, from universities; 6, from NGOs; 4, from RTOs; 2, from foundations, and 4 more, from other type of organizations.

Regarding the country of origin of the submitted projects, the top 3 list of a total of 26 European countries is as follows:

1. France: 12.
2. Spain: 9.
3. Italy: 6.

This list is followed by Slovenia (5); Austria, Germany and Greece (4); Ireland, Netherlands and Romania (3); Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia and Turkey (2), and one project coming from each of these countries: Czechia, Finland, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

The NGI Sargasso Open Call 3 Addressed Challenges

A total of ten challenges were addressed by our innovators in our third open call:

1. Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Across Continents.
2. Harmonized Cross-Atlantic Digital Governance.
3. Inclusive Public Digital Spaces for Global Community Engagement.
4. Enhanced Data Security and Privacy in Transcontinental Perspective.
5. Interoperability and Standardisation Across Borders Description.
6. Global Implementation of Decentralised Technologies.
7. Next-Gen Cybersecurity and Generative AI.
8. Next Generation Space Based Internet.
9. Redefining Intelligence in a Hyperconnected World.
10. Open Challenge for Next Generation Internet Description.

Two more NGI Sargasso Open Calls in 2024 with up to €100,000 equity-free funding per beneficiary

As a unique collaborative ecosystem and program for promoting the Transatlantic cooperation for Next Generation Internet technologies, we will launch two more open calls in 2024, so stay tuned to our social media to discover more:

• Open Call 4: Summer 2024.
• Open Call 5 (our last call): Autumn 2024.

After being carefully reviewed by external evaluators, NGI Sargasso selected beneficiaries can get up to €100,000 equity-free funding, access to an up to 9-month Capacity-Building Program with e-lessons and inspirational talks from industry experts, and services from top mentors and coches who guide them during the whole program duration. Besides, the NGI Sargasso innovators also get invited to join a +3,000 members community of the Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative.

by admin

Discover NGI Sargasso Second Open Call Innovators Shaping a Human-centric Internet

NGI Sargasso closed its second open call with 80 Internet innovators ready to redesign the Internet of the Future for our generations to come. After external mentors evaluated each of the submitted collaborative proposals, nine projects have been selected as beneficiaries to receive up to €100,000 equity-free funding and enter an up to 9-month Capacity Building program powered by NGI Sargasso partners and third party experts and mentors.

Discover the innovative projects that will foster the Transatlantic cooperation on Next Generation Internet technologies under the NGI Sargasso funding program!

1. DPP-CRC: Digital Product Passport for Carbon-Reduced Concrete

Develop and demonstrate a digital product passport for carbon-reduced concrete emphasising cross-Atlantic legislation and governance.

This project utilizes SSI technologies and Zero-Knowledge Proofs to create process conform Digital Product Passports in line with the EU Green Deal. It targets Europe's growing carbon-reduced concrete market with the goal to collect and present verified, tamper-proof data along the production chain. This is vital in construction for reducing concrete's carbon footprint. The project's efficacy will be demonstrated in European and Canadian markets, as a blueprint for sustainable industry practices.

• Partners: OwnYourData (Austria) and Doka Canada Ltd./Ltee (Canada).

2. DES: Decentralized Electronic Signature using Blockchain based Digital Identity

Revolutionizing digital authentication: a blockchain-powered decentralized electronic signature system, integrating with gov-smart solution for enhanced security and trust in public sector transactions.

The DES project, under the NGI Sargasso Support Programme, seeks to create a groundbreaking decentralized electronic signature system using blockchain technology. Integrated with Gov-Smart, it will enable citizens to generate secure digital signatures, verified and authenticated through a robust blockchain framework. This initiative promises to revolutionize public sector transactions, offering unparalleled security, transparency, and efficiency.

• Partners: AI Professional Software Solution (Romania) and VizLore LLC (USA).

3. GUARDIAN: Detection and Recovery from Ransomware for Attacks to Data in Motion

Ransomware real attacks exploiting vulnerabilities in the file system for data in motion is a sophisticated, non documented and elusive attack that poses potential devastating consequences, including sensitive information leaks to systems and loss of trust among stakeholders.

The GUARDIAN project will define and implement the GUARDIAN toolkit: a set of detection and recovery tools for Ransomware attacks to data in motion. To achieve this, GUARDIAN will leverage methodologies and cutting-edge technologies (such as Artificial Intelligence and applications virtualization) to stay ahead of evolving cyber threats. The toolkit will be integrated and validated in a dedicated testbed designed to reproduce the intricacies of the aforementioned attacks.

• Partners: Universitat Politècnica de València (Spain) and University of Wisconsin_#_Madison (USA).

4. HPQCSSI: Hybrid Post-Quantum Cryptography Self-Sovereign Identity Stack

Develop a quantum secure self-sovereign identity manager designed for the human-centric next generation internet.

HPQCSSI will develop a hybrid cryptographic quantum secure self-sovereign identity stack with a focus on bridging the EU and USA identity gateways for the human-centric future. The project will improve existing open-source self-sovereign identity (SSI) tools by hardening them against quantum attacks through parallel use of classical and quantum-resistant cryptography. EU-USA workshops of future consumers will be conducted to ensure that the developed SSI tools truly bring value to users globally.

• Partners: VTT (Finland) and Ohio University (USA).

5. Melisseus: Large Language Models as Defensive Honeypots

Melisseus uses Large Language Models (LLM) as the backend of advanced deceptive honeypots for human attackers. It mimics systems, services, and data to actively engage attackers, capture their tactics, and provide network defenders with insights into their motivations and objectives.

To research, develop, and apply LLMs to generate honeypots designed to deceive human attackers, Melisseus aim is to increase variance in response types, improve technical detail, and precisely replicate different target systems. They expect the LLM's generated output to be more effective at luring or confounding attackers into perceiving honeypots as genuine production systems. They plan to use LLMs to create honeypots tailored to popular protocols like SSH, TELNET, SMTP, POP3, MySQL, MsSQL, and HTTP.

• Partners: CVUT (Czech Republic) and Université de Montréal (Canada).

6. RSFA: Rosseta Stone for APIs

Interoperability has become a major demand of digital ecosystems globally. Achieving it usually means aligning the APIs of different organizations with a common semantic ontology. The Rosetta Stone for APIs makes it easy to align your organization’s APIs with the ontology of your industry.

Within EU Data Spaces, in American agriculture and through the India Stack, there is fast growing demand for interoperability based on the same global technical standards. In these three continents, there is explicit demand for a Rosetta Stone for APIs, as organizations need to make their existing APIs interoperable with their partners. In this project, the NGI Sargasso innovators will develop an open source solution that easily transforms an API from its current form to one that is compliant with the ontology of its industry.

• Partners: Startin'blox (France) and Open Food Network Canada (Canada).

7. SIDIHub: Sustainable & Interoperable Digital Identity

Empowering digital identity: where collective intelligence drives cross-border interoperability.

SIDI is a collaborative hub involving over 15 organizations from EU, USA and Canada. It aims to bridge national digital identity schemes by developing a policy resolver and related internet protocol that maps trust framework of country A to country B. By building cross-border interoperability for digital identity, the project seeks to accelerate operationalization of digital trust services. With over a 1,000 companies onboard, SIDI demonstrates potential to make an impact in the identity domain.

• Partners: SIA (Belgium) and OpenID Foundation (USA).

8. Trustless Democracy: Decentralized Digital Sovereign Identity and Voting System using Blockchain Technology

Revolutionizing democracy beyond traditional 4-year cycles, Trustless Democracy introduces a zero-cost, technology-driven model for efficient, remote electoral participation, leveraging blockchain for secure, transparent voting, empowering citizens in real-time democratic processes.

Challenging the traditional concept that democracy is limited to voting every four years, the Trustless Democracy project employs cutting-edge blockchain technology and zero-knowledge proofs to facilitate continuous, cost-free electoral participation. This initiative integrates secure digital identities and an innovative open-source voting system, designed to significantly boost citizen efficiency and involvement in democratic processes. Their first implementation will be through Gov-Smart.

• Partners: AI Professional Software Solution (Romania) and Université de Sherbrooke (Canada).

9. VeriRecruit: AI-Driven Interview Analysis for Precision Hiring

VeriRecruit: transforming hiring with AI precision-unveiling authentic talent, fostering trust, and elevating recruitment experiences for a future-ready workforce.

VeriRecruit is a human-centric approach to hiring excellence. Harnessing AI for precise analysis, validation, and improving the selection process, they will unveil authentic talent, foster trust, and elevate recruitment experiences for a future-ready workforce. Redefining interviews, shaping careers.

• Partners: Training Experience (Spain) and University of Maryland (USA).

You can discover the rest of the NGI Sargasso innovators in our catalogue of funded projects.

by admin