2013 FRIDA Awards: Rewarding the Best Initiatives

28/02/2013

From projects for implementing health services over the Internet in a small island of El Salvador to programs seeking to reduce the educational gap in mathematics for Mexico’s youth through the use of the Internet, or even initiatives for producer communities of La Paz (Bolivia) to improve their market position through online information, these are examples of the experiences that the Regional Fund for Digital Innovation in Latin America and the Caribbean (FRIDA) has been supporting since 2004. FRIDA has already provided financial support and grants to more than 50 initiatives and projects from 15 different Latin American and Caribbean countries for a total of more than 1.5 million dollars.

Many more research and implementation projects relating to the Information Society from every corner of Latin America and the Caribbean will benefit from FRIDA’s new call for proposals. Known as “Awards+”, this first call for proposals seeks to recognize five outstanding projects in the field of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), with an emphasis on social inclusion and the region’s economic, social, and cultural development.

For this first 2013 call for proposals an innovation has been added as, in addition to the award, FRIDA will offer the chance to obtain non-reimbursable funds for organizations to further or replicate their projects.

Applications will be received until 31 May. The FRIDA Awards will recognize proposals that have made significant contributions in the field of ICT in terms of economic, social, and cultural development (see: programafrida.net/awards).

Projects may be submitted for the Awards+ under the following topics: Access, Freedoms, Development, and Innovation, all of these with an emphasis on Internet Governance. An award will also be presented to the most voted and most creative project.

About FRIDA

FRIDA is a Lacnic initiative that aims at contributing to the development of the Information Society in Latin America and the Caribbean by funding research projects and recognizing and allowing the extension of innovative projects in the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT).

FRIDA is part of the Seed Alliance, a joint initiative with our sister programs FIRE (AfriNIC) and ISIF (APNIC), and receives financial support from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC of Canada), the Internet Society (ISOC), the Swiss International Cooperation Agency (SIDA), and the contribution of the three Regional Internet Registries to which the programs belong.