Rules & Guidelines

Deep Funding (DF) is a grant program by SingularityNET that empowers AI developers and innovators, distributing funds to community-selected projects to foster the development of new AI applications to be onboarded in the Foundation’s decentralized AI platform. These grants, which do not require repayment or shares, aim to shift control from a few large companies to a more open and democratic AI ecosystem.

Deep Funding Is A Community-Driven Program. 

Community members can ask questions, offer feedback, and participate in the selection of the awarded proposals, either directly, through voting, or indirectly by 'Community Experts' that represent the wider community.  
By answering any questions promptly and concisely you will nurture a healthy dialog that may benefit you and your proposal. Please treat all feedback with due respect based on the premise that the community is here to help you and improve the quality of our program. 

Any Proposed Project Should Support The Mission And Vision Of SingularityNET. 

The purpose of SingularityNET is to drive the development of benevolent, democratic, inclusive Artificial General Intelligence. This means that all proposals are welcome:

• Deliberately aim for beneficial outcomes, or offer a utility that has the potential to be used for beneficial outcomes.
• Take measures to minimize the chances of detrimental outcomes.

For more information about the goals of Deep Funding, please read: https://deepfunding.ai/funding-with-purpose-growth-strategy/

The BEST Round Proposals have:

• A good value proposition and market fit (convincing market research is a plus)
• Support from a complete and professional team (including all needed roles to develop and roll out)
• Explicit ethical standards and rules
• A business case that has a good prospect of generating high-value / high-quantity API calls

The BEST RFP proposals follow all conditions stated in the RFP and have:

• A capable team with demonstrable expertise and experience in the given field
• A detailed description of the proposed soplution
• A clear solution to all 'Must-haves', as well as any 'Should haves' and 'Could haves' specified in the RFP descriptions.

Work Ethos.

In general, we expect the teams to be cooperative and communicative on their projects toward the SingularityNET community and the Foundation. Likewise, the Deep Funding team will have a constructive and cooperative attitude in guiding the teams, supporting our shared goal of making the project a success and driving utility to the platform.

Teams are expected to be self-reliant and independently handle the tasks necessary to complete their milestones. They are responsible for executing and delivering milestones without direct support from SNET or DF personnel resources, unless previously in agreement. 

Each RFP defines its own set of rules and guidelines, and comes with its own timeline. Important criteria are the maximum amount that is available per project, and the timeline during which the RFP is open for submissions. 

In the detailed description of the RFP, you will find other conditions, often specified as 'Must haves' 'Should haves' and 'Could Haves'. Also non-functional requirements may be defined, such as conditions on performance, documentation, security, etc.

Be sure to read all conditions in the RFP carefully, especially if you are submitting a proposal to multiple RFPs. 

Our portal offers a step-by-step proposal creation flow for proposals. The flows are similar in structure but have different questions and fields depending on the type of proposal. What you need to have available for completing your proposal is:

• The name of your project 
• A summary text of your project
• The required budget
• A detailed description of your proposal
• A breakdown with a description and budget for each milestone 
• Names and email addresses of your team members so you can invite them to the portals and have them added to the project detail page. 

(Depending on the RFP or pool additional questions can be asked.)
You can start and pause the proposal creation at any time and your changes will be saved after clicking 'Finish Later'.

NB: As long as the RFP or Round is 'Open for submission', proposal details are only visible to you, your team members, and Deep Funding admins / selected reviewers. During this phase, all other visitors will only see the main attributes, including the proposal's title, summary, and owner. When the submission period is completed, the proposal will be published in full to all visitors.

The portal gives specific guardrails and restrictions for submitting a proposal in terms of required fields and maximum character counts. The goal is to make proposals from different teams easier to compare and efficient to evaluate. Both by experts and regular community members. 

Please take time to explain your proposal as well as possible within the given character constraints. The shorter the text the more important the choice of words is. This is especially the case for the project title and summary. They will determine whether a visitor will be motivated to click and read through the details of your proposal, so give them the attention they deserve. 

Legal and finance: 

funds will be disbursed as AGIX or FET/ASI. Before any disbursement can be made we will ask you to sign a contract that states the rules and conditions in a legally binding way. 

Communication Channel

Team leads are invited to the 'awarded Teams Channel on our 'Mattermost' communication portal. This is an important source for official information as well as an opportunity to get in touch with other awarded team members.  

Milestone Payment 

Disbursements will be made per milestone and only after the team’s delivered outcome is approved by the Review Circle, following the process specified here and the Circle instructions.

Minimum Exchange Rate

To protect the DF treasury from extreme, temporary downward volatility we apply a minimum AGIX-USD exchange rate of 0,08 USD for milestone payments. (Or similar USD-based rates in FET or ASI tokens). This is an emergency brake that is hopefully never needed. Should it however be activated, we will contact you and discuss appropriate action together.