[CWN-Summit] AusAID Funding Opportunities

[Paul Gardner-Stephen]

Hi All,

AusAID, Australia's official international aid agency have an open
round of funding for projects of AUD$200,000 - AUD$400,000 for up to
two to three years covering a range of areas that could be of
relevance to Serval, Village Telco, the community wireless network
movement generally, and to our respective communities and populations
that we wish to help.

Their priority areas this round are:

Africa
Disability-inclusive Development
Education
Gender
Health
Mining for Development
Scholarships
Water, Sanitation & Hygiene

Obviously we are probably better placed to make a contribution in some
of those fields than in others.

I believe that an application that involved Serval as Australian
anchor, working with one or more organisations or groups in Africa
would potentially be well placed to contest one of these grants.

It could be in the area of resilient/infrastructure-independent
education systems.
It could be in the area of resilient/infrastructure-independent
collection and processing of medical data from field workers.
It could be one of many things, those are just two that came to mind.

What is clear to me is that working together, it will be much more and
much better than if I were to attempt it alone.

There is about a month to formulate and submit an application.

Anyone up for the challenge of helping to pull something together to
everyone's benefit?

Anyone have any specific ideas as to what they would like to pursue,
as to what change they would like to make and how we can propose a
coherent plan of action that would fit within the AUD$400,000 -
AUD$800,000 funding envelope?  Perhaps think about proving and
assessing some technologies with a given community, so that it can be
replicated elsewhere.

Anyway, let's get the creative juices running, and see what we can come up with.

Paul.