Applications Invited for Lacuna Fund Grant

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About the Organization

Lacuna Fund is the world’s first collaborative effort to provide data scientists, researchers, and social entrepreneurs in low- and middle-income contexts globally with the resources they need to produce labeled datasets that address urgent problems in their communities.

About the Grant  

Lacuna Fund provides data scientists, researchers, and social entrepreneurs with the resources they need to either produce new training and evaluation datasets to address an underserved population or problem, augment existing datasets to be more representative, or update old datasets to be more sustainable. All datasets produced will be locally developed and owned, and they will be openly accessible to the international community while adhering to best practices regarding ethics and privacy.

Lacuna Fund supports the creation, expansion, and maintenance of equitably labeled datasets that enable the robust application of machine learning (ML) tools of high social value in low- and middleincome contexts globally. The Fund aims to:

• Disburse funds to institutions to create, expand, and/or maintain datasets that fill gaps and reduce bias in labeled data used for the training and/or evaluation of machine learning models.
• Make it possible for underserved populations to take advantage of advances offered by AI.
• Deepen understanding by the machine learning and philanthropy communities of how to fund development and maintenance of equitably labeled datasets most effectively and efficiently.

Lacuna Fund values a collaborative and locally-driven approach to data creation, expansion, and maintenance. We recognize that the continued usefulness and maintenance of open data derives from a community invested in that data. Lacuna Fund hopes to fund datasets that contribute to multiple applications of high social value, whether through research, commercial innovation, or improved public sector services.

Eligibility

To be eligible for funding, organizations must: 

• Be either a non-profit entity, research institution, for-profit social enterprise, or a team of such organizations. Individuals must apply through an institutional sponsor. Partnerships are strongly encouraged, but only the lead applicant will receive funds.
• Have a mission supporting societal good, broadly defined. 
• Be headquartered in or have a substantial partnership in the country or region where data will be collected.
• Have all necessary national or other approvals to conduct the proposed research. The approval process may be conducted in parallel with the grant application, if necessary. Approval costs, if any, are the responsibility of the applicant.
• Have the technical capacity – or the ability to build this capacity through a partnership described in the proposal – to conduct dataset labeling, creation, aggregation, expansion, and/or maintenance, including the ability to apply best practice and established standards in the specific domain (e.g. climate and forests; sexual, reproductive, and maternal health and rights) to allow high quality AI/ML analytics to be performed by multiple entities.

How to Apply

Proposal submissions will only be accepted through the SurveyMonkey Apply application portal available at www.lacunafund.org/apply. A description of application questions is available below for information only. The following sections are required:

• Applicant Information (accessible in the portal)
• Proposal Narrative
• Budget & Timeline

For more information please check the Link

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