TL/DR
We are starting a new experimental initiative to increase transparency and community involvement in the DFINITY Developer Grants Program.
In the initial phase, we would steer all USD 5k (micro grants) toward a public review and invite the community to offer feedback and participate in the evaluation process.
Go live will be Monday, April 1st (no joke 
). The initiative will be in a trial period of ~12 weeks after which we’ll evaluate the impact and solidify, adjust, or discontinue.
If all goes well, we would look at subsequently expanding this initiative to include larger grants.
- If you want to participate as an official reviewer please apply via this form.
- Get yourself familiar with the evaluation rubric.
Context
The DFINITY Developer Grants Program has three general funding tiers:
- USD 5,000 (micro)
- USD 25,000 (medium)
- USD 100,000 (large, in general only available for follow-on grants that have proven value to the ecosystem)
All grants are paid in ICP.
With this initiative, we’ll ask applicants for the micro tier to publish their grant proposals in this forum category, to allow for community deliberation and feedback. The main goal is to increase the impact of the grants by enabling collaboration between new grantees and the established ICP community.
How it works
Grant evaluation rubric
| Score | Comment | |
|---|---|---|
| Basics | ||
| Project Description | 1-3 | Is the project well-described? Is it clear what the team wants to build, and how? |
| Innovation | 1-5 | Does the project bring something unique to ICP? Has there been similar such projects in the ecosystem? |
| Milestones | 1-3 | Are the milestones and deliverables clearly defined, achievable and verifiable? Code/feature deliverables are preferred. |
| Team Qualifications | 1-5 | How qualified is the team to build this project? Do they have a strong track record? Do they have experience building on ICP? |
| Technical Review | ||
| Feasibility | 1-5 | Can this project be built? Are there technical blockers or dependencies? Are there regulation or compliance challenges? |
| Technical complexity | 1-3 | Is the project straightforward to build (score = 1-2) or are there interesting/hard technical challenges to overcome (score = 2-3)? |
| Usage of ICP capabilities | 1-5 | Will the project use a wide variety of ICP capabilities, such as vetKeys, Chain-key signatures, HTTPS Outcalls etc.? |
| Outcome | ||
| Reaching POC/MVP | 1-5 | How far will the grant take the project? Will the project reach a POC, MVP and/or launchable stage? |
| Showcase Potential | 1-5 | Is this a good showcase of the capabilities of ICP? |
| Open Source | 1/3 | Will the code be open sourced? 1 = No, 3 = Yes |
| Ecosystem | 1-5 | How useful is this project for the ecosystem? Can other devs learn from this project, use this project in their own projects, or has this potential to attract people to the ecosystem ? |
1 = Low, 5 = High, the higher the score the better.
Evaluation of the initiative
This initiative will be on a trial for the next ~12 weeks and we will evaluate the impact according to the following (preliminary) criteria:
- Number and quality of community reviews
- Quality and impact of feedback and discussions
- Feedback from grantees
- Feedback from DFINITY Developer Grants review committee
Get involved
Please chime in if you have any suggestions, concerns, or questions regarding this initiative.
Furthermore, please consider signing up to contribute as a reviewer.