mCaptcha - NLnet grant application - August 2022

Funding
#22

We are in! :blush:

Dear Aravinth and Gusted,


Congratulations! We have received the green light from the independent review committee. That means your project "mCaptcha" (2022-08-142) is one of the selected proposals eligible to receive a grant from NLnet foundation in the August 2022 NGI0 Entrust call!

We should set up a call in order to undertake the necessary further steps - leading up to a Memorandum of Understanding that includes a concrete project plan with pertinent milestones. Note that the final amount of the grant will be determined in dialogue with you, also taking into account any new insights during the negotiations.

We at NLnet Foundation are very much looking forward to working with you, together with our partners in NGI0 Entrust - which we will tell you more about during our upcoming call. You will also find the key information in the attached document.

Can you please indicate some convenient dates in the coming weeks?

If you meanwhile have any questions, please let us know.

Kind regards,
on behalf of NLnet foundation,
<redacted>

cc: @gusted

3 Likes
#23

Ran a poll to determine ideal dates. I have tests from October 28th to November 10th. Hopefully NLnet are available on the 26th :crossed_fingers:

My response:

Dear <redacted>,

Thanks for the email, this is great news! :)

Gusted and I are available on October 26th from 14:00-16:00 UTC+2. Please let me know if this timing convenient for you.

Warm regards,
Aravinth
2 Likes
#24

I forgot to post the following messages:

  1. From me to NLnet on 22:09 IST 25th October, 2022:
Dear <redacted>,

Apologies for requesting the meeting in such short notice. It's just that Gusted is busy this week except for the 26th[0], and I will be unavailable from 1st to 7th November.

If 26th is too tight, can you please let me know if we can pick a date after November 7th?

Thanks!

Warm regards,
Aravinth


[0]: https://framadate.org/mcaptcha-nlnet-2022-01
  1. Received response from NLnet at 22:27 IST 31st October, 2022:
Sorry for the delay, we are very busy rounding up two previous grant programmes, which finish today. Tomorrow we will start planning our calls. A call next week, after the 7th, is fine.

— <redacted>, NLnet
  1. The above email is from a different person at NLnet, my original handler sent the folloiwng response oat 22:27 31st October, 2022:
Hi Aravinth and Gusted,

> Gusted and I are available on October 26th from 14:00-16:00 UTC+2. Please let me know if this timing convenient for you.

we didn't make that date, apologies - we were very busy with a deadline.
Would you have some new dates for us? For instance on Friday the 11th?

Best,
<redacted>

For the record, I’ve been the only person receiving these emails. I have requested @gusted’s email, will start cc’ing him in future communications.

#25

Maybe make an alias that forwards to both of you. That works for the Gitea application.

2 Likes
#26

Sent the following email:

Hello <redacted>,

Gusted and I are available from 12PM - 4PM UTC+1 the 11th. Please let me know if this timing is inconvenient, we will come with alternate dates :)

Warm regards,
Aravinth
#27

Received positive response on the timing from NLnet:

Hi Aravinth, Gusted,


> Gusted and I are available from 12PM - 4PM UTC+1 the 11th. Please let me know if this timing is inconvenient, we will come with alternate dates 😄

that works beautifully. I've noted you down for 12h CET. I am aware that this is a late hour for you, so as early as possible 😉

I hope you can find the time to look into the intake document we sent before.

I suggest we use an open source tool called Galene, which we host an instance of ourselves:

<redacted>

(you can use any name or password) Let me know if that works for you.

Looking forward to meeting you both and discuss the project!

Best,
<redacted>
#28

Sent confirmation email:

Hello <redacted>,

 > that works beautifully. I've noted you down for 12h CET. I am aware that
 > this is a late hour for you, so as early as possible ;)

Thank you, it is perfect!

> Let me know if that works for you.

And we confirm able to log into the Galene instance.

Looking forward to meeting you!

Warm regards,
Aravinth
#29

You are in the final phases and maybe have doubts regarding what you can publish publicly or not. From asking in a previous grant, the answer is: everything, except for the exact amounts. And except when told otherwise, such as recording the intake call. To be on the safe side you can explicitly ask your contact.

So for instance, there is nothing confidential in the intake document or the MoU, except for private data and amounts which you can conveniently redact. It would be great if you publish them when the time comes so there are more examples out there, not just what I published :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#30

Thanks for the tip, I’ll take it up with my handler and publish everything that is safe to publish :blush:

#31

@gusted and I have come up with a draft work plan for the grant. The work plan includes all tasks that were included in the proposal and some additional ones that @gusted will be working on.

We haven’t assigned weights to tasks, but we will be assigning concrete amounts against them soon.

Some backlog in reporting:

Gusted and I attended an intake call with NLnet where some basic information regarding the grant and our collaboration was presented. I didn’t receive prior approval from them to publish our communications, so they had some reservations about it. Going forward, I’ll seek permission from them before uploading it to here.

We also received a draft MoU yesterday (2022-11-17). The MoU was missing some information, so I emailed today requesting clarification.