FRIDA closes its 2012 call with 100 projects submitted

21/06/2012

FRIDA, a LACNIC, IDRC and ISOC initiative, closed its 8^th call for projects on Monday 18 June.

This time proposals were received under two categories:

On the one hand, the “Awards” category, which seeks to recognize the best five regional initiatives in the field of ICTs, identifying existing best practices that can be duplicated and contribute to showcase positive experiences before the decision-makers of the region. On the other, the “Small Grants” category through which financial support is provided to supplement other funding sources. These grants are non-reimbursable and must be executed within twelve months.

The Awards category received nominations under four topics: Access, Freedoms, Development and Innovation. In addition, a fifth award will be granted to the project with the best web 2.0 campaign and which in turn is considered by the jury to be the most creative.

This time 60 projects were submitted in the Awards category, 33 % of which were presented under Access, 22% under Freedoms, 41% under Development, and 40% under Innovation. An analysis of the type of organizations proposing the projects shows that 45%, i.e. the highest percentage, are civil society organizations, followed by private initiatives which account for 25% of nominations. Academia and the government sector each represent 16% of all proposing organizations. As to the distribution by country and number of projects submitted, considering all the countries in the LACNIC service region, on average 16 projects were submitted per country. South American countries exhibited the highest levels of participation, submitting, on average, more than 18 projects per country, including 25 and 24 projects from Argentina and Peru, respectively.

In addition, 40 proposals were submitted under the Small Grants category, distributed as follows among four different areas:

• Almost 83% of all proposals were presented under accelerating access and the social benefits of the Internet in vulnerable and underserved communities;
• Close to 40% were submitted under implementing strategies for reliable and effective Internet infrastructure, human capacity and skills development;
• 13% included efforts to enhance, expand and promote Internet standards development; and
• 5% of the projects were filed under political, economic and social effects of anti-piracy bills.

As regards proposing organizations, close to 60% of all projects submitted for receiving small grants originated in civil society organizations, followed by almost 30% submitted by the academic sector and 4% by private initiatives. No proposals were received from the government sector.

An important note both regarding the Awards as well as the Small Grants categories is that the topics covered in each area are not mutually exclusive; therefore, a project may apply under several topics within the same category. The same project, however, cannot apply simultaneously in the Awards and Small Grants categories.

The winners of this edition of the FRIDA Awards will be announced on 17 August. The five winners will receive a cash prize of US$ 3000 and a trip to the Pre-IGF meeting to be held in Bogota towards the end of September as well as to the IGF that will meet on 6- 9 November in Baku, Azerbaijan.

In turn, the winners of the Small Grants category will receive US$ 15 000 to apply towards their research projects.

The FRIDA Program and LACNIC would like to thank and celebrate the Latin America and the Caribbean community for participating in this 2012 edition of the Program.