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Overview
| Donor: | Open Technology Fund (OTF) |
| Application procedure: | Online Application |
| Donor base: | United States |
| Reference number: | - |
| Eligible applicants: | Individual, Non-Profit Organisation, Social Business |
| Deadline: | ongoing |
Financial details
| Grant size: | Medium - up to $1,000,000 |
| Minimum grant size: | - |
| Total available budget: | - |
| Funding type: | Grants |
| Maximum grant size: | - |
| Funding ratio: | up to 100% |
Sectors
- Human Rights
- Media & Journalism
- Research, Technology & Innovation
Project Locations
Africa
Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Western Sahara, Zambia, Zimbabwe
America
Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela
Asia
Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, East Timor, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Philippines, Qatar, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, West Bank and Gaza, Yemen
Europe
Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine
Pacific
Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu
Description
1) Objective
The Surge and Sustain Fund is the primary way that OTF provides resources to leading VPN and circumvention solutions to support user costs in highly restrictive environments. As internet censorship continues to escalate globally, more users than ever are relying on circumvention technologies to counter censorship and access the free and open internet. In response to this increasing demand, OTF has established the Surge and Sustain Fund to provide leading circumvention tools with the resources they need to sustain their current users and respond to growing demand for their tools.
In many authoritarian countries, it is cost-prohibitive for citizens to access secure, trustworthy and effective circumvention tools. In recognition and response to this challenge, the Surge and Sustain Fund will support user-carrying costs for non-monetizable users of secure, open-source circumvention tools to ensure that all citizens living in repressive environments have access to these critical anti-censorship technologies. The Surge and Sustain Fund will not cover any development efforts, but instead cover only the additional marginal costs associated with providing circumvention services to demonstrably served monthly active users (MAUs) in pre-specified countries.
2) Eligibility
Ideal applicants are: (1) open in nature and collaborative; (2) from within communities affected by censorship or are co-designing and co-developing with them; (3) promoting a deeper understanding of internet freedom challenges and limitations; (4) solving a currently unaddressed challenge or preempting an emerging one; and/or (5) are actively maintaining technologies demanded and utilized by people on the front lines of the world’s most repressive environments.
3) Location
Actions can take place worldwide.
4) Budget
Proposal pricing should focus only on costs related to bandwidth and infrastructure needed to support users in specified countries. Applicants will be supplied with a methodology to calculate these costs in the application process.
5) Application
Applications to the Surge and Sustain Fund go through a three-stage application process. First, a concept note focused on the resilience of the VPN Provider’s technical solution and a number of qualifying conditions. Second, applicants whose concept notes are deemed to be highly competitive will be invited to submit a full proposal focused on the distinguishing features of their technical solution, its ability to demonstrably support a large user base in highly repressive contexts, and the technical solution’s cost model. Finally, the Surge and Sustain Fund Advisory Council, made up of experts in the VPN and Internet Freedom space, will conduct a final review. The concept note and proposal should be submitted through OTF’s online application system.