Latest revision as of 12:33, 9 October 2012

Welcome to the wiki page for KM4Dev's 2012 Innovation Fund!

Guidelines on how it works are included below. If you have already looked at the information below and are ready to submit an idea for consideration right now, please click on the following link to submit your proposal.

• Proposals for the KM4Dev Innovation Fund 2012

More about the KM4Dev Innovation Fund 2012

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is providing support during 2011-2013 to the KM4Dev community. In addition to covering some of the costs associated with various online learning activities and the occasional face-to-face KM4Dev community gatherings, a portion of this funding is also available to support innovation within the community, so we would like to invite those of you who are thinking about such innovations and need seed funding to help them move forward to submit a brief description of your activity along with funding requirements for consideration.

What kind of innovation?

It could be the development of a new methodology, tool, or guide. Or, perhaps you are working on a new collaborative initiative that would be of interest to the KM4Dev community. Maybe it is a piece of research that may result in new insights into KM in a development context.

What is the process?

We have set up a space on the KM4Dev wiki for you to add a brief description of your innovation (please read through all of the information in this message before you add your description. When you are ready to submit, click on the link above entitled 'Proposals for the KM4Dev Innovation Fund 2012'). If you do not already have a KM4Dev wiki account, please click on the 'Log in / create account' link at the top right side of this page

Please make your description as short as possible (the equivalent of a one-page document would be best), and include:

1. a title
2. a summary description
3. an indication of the relevance and potential benefit to the KM4Dev community
4. who (individuals and/or organisations) is involved
5. what the funding requirements will be (maximum USD5000)

You have until October 31, 2012 to submit your description. Then, we will invite all members of the KM4Dev community to rank the various descriptions. The KM4Dev Core Group will then determine winning applications based on community assessments. Depending on the funding requirements in the applications, we expect 2-3 winners to be announced. The announcement will be made in mid-November.

Implementation of your activity must be completed by the end of January 2013. Finally, as a condition of receiving support, you will be obliged to share what you have learned in on the km4dev community knowledge wiki, and inform the KM4Dev community through it's main discussion group (km4dev-l).

What kinds of costs will the funding cover?

This depends on the innovation you are submitting. Maybe you need to support development of a prototype, a template, or a draft document. Perhaps you have a critical piece of research that needs to be undertaken. Maybe you have a project in the early stages of development and you need to assemble the core partners for a meeting. If the anticipated expenses are appropriate to the innovation, then they can be funded, although of course successful applicants will need to provide acceptable accounting for all expenses in order to receive payment. Although it is possible to receive a small advance payment for anticipated expenses, full payment will be made upon completion of all deliverables, including informing the KM4Dev community.

Who is eligible?

Any individual or institutional member of KM4Dev is eligible. As we do not have a formal membership structure, we will use the proxy of membership on the KM4Dev discussion group and/or website. Thus, if you are subscribed to the KM4Dev list as of the date of this announcement, or you have signed up on the KM4Dev website, you are eligible to apply.

What criteria will be used?

We suggest a simple set of criteria that KM4Dev community members would use to rank the various applications. These criteria are:

1. potential benefit to the KM4Dev community,
2. degree of 'innovativeness' (in terms of, for example, technology , ways of working, new knowledge, etc.)
3. tangible output(s)

Once all applications are received and processed, we will invite all KM4Devers to look at the descriptions and score them according to the above criteria.

Good luck!