• Projects
  • Program
  • Updates
  • SingularityNET

BGI Nexus Round Rules

“Building a Compassionate and Abundant Future”

This grant program is an initiative within the BGI Nexus project in SingularityNET that empowers AI developers and innovators. Funds will be distributed to community-selected projects to foster the development of beneficial AI applications and initiatives that align with SingularityNET’s vision for beneficial AI and AGI. 

These grants, which do not require repayment or shares, aim to shift the locus of AI and AGI development from large companies focused on economic ends to a more open and democratic AI ecosystem, and create real solutions for real-world problems.

Through these grants, we aim to contribute to a diverse ecology of AI that benefits life and contributes to the flourishing of humans, societies, and the biosphere.

Award

The total funding available for BGI Nexus Round 1 is $500,000 in token, with a max cap of $50,000 USD per project.

Note: Being the first test round of the new BGI Nexus funding program, and the first partner round on the Deep Funding platform, there are many unknowns. Therefore, some program parameters may need to be adjusted in response to how the grant round progress unfolds. The review and selection process will be refined as the round progresses to be in line with the demands of the round and the number of proposals.

In-progress changes will be minimized as far as possible, and any changes will be clearly communicated at the earliest possible opportunity to the entire community via email and announcement channels; participants are responsible for monitoring these channels and receiving all updates.

BGI Nexus is a community-centered funding 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' who represent the wider community.
As a proposer, by answering any questions from the community (or from the coordinating team) promptly and concisely, you will nurture a healthy dialogue 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 and outcomes of BGI development.

Any proposed project must support the mission and vision of the BGI Nexus

The purpose of the BGI Nexus is to foster discussions, share resources, and provide funding for developing beneficial AI, AGI, and other impactful technologies that benefit life and contribute to the flourishing of humans, societies, and the biosphere. 

This means that all proposals are welcome that:

  • Deliberately aim for social and environmental good
  • Take measures to minimize the chances of detrimental outcomes in line with a strong approach to safety and ethics

“Social or environmental good” is defined as outcomes that include:

  • Technical solutions to the poly-crisis:
    • E.g. environmental and regenerative technologies; social technologies that provide solutions to key challenges such as logistics or coordination; educational technologies.
  • Contributions to AI and AGI that specifically aim at solutions to prevent AGI harms or proactively seek out beneficial outcomes:
    • E.g. safety monitoring solutions, or components that maximize the chances of positive and compassionate behavior in AGI systems)
  • Technical projects for social benefit such as increasing equality, diversity, and inclusion in the AI and AGI space.

Other beneficial outcomes not listed here, can be considered by expert reviewers. However, the beneficial component should not be an add-on but a central goal of the project. It should also have a strong AI component. While not mandatory in this special round, proposals aiming to onboard onto or utilize AI services on the SNET decentralized marketplace are particularly welcome!

For now, we are not considering areas unrelated to AI and AGI projects, though the initiative may expand into more general areas at some time in the future if there are sufficient resources to do so.

For more information about the goals of BGI Nexus, please read: 

https://bgicollective.singularitynet.io/

Round proposals MUST:

  • Be centered around social or environmental good, with clear applicability to real-world problems
  • Contain an impact proposition, with such topics as breadth of impact (impact at an individual, community, or global level), and depth of impact (how profound the impact to abundance, flourishing, regeneration, etc). Convincing impact research is a plus.
  • Be technical in nature - building and delivering AI systems that address societal and environmental needs, and impactfully solve real-world problems. 
  • Address how they handle ethical considerations, particularly for technologies, such as facial recognition or anything handling user data, that could have a significant societal impact
  • Describe a safety plan throughout the milestones. This will be monitored by reviewers and will be a factor in decisions around the disbursement of funds for milestones.

Proposer teams MUST:

  • Have a complete and professional set of members - including all needed roles to develop and roll out.
  • Maintain communication with the DF program, and join the designated Telegram Channel as this will be the official announcement channel for this Round.
  • Execute project milestones independently, without direct support from SingularityNET or Deep Funding personnel unless otherwise agreed.
  • Be resourced to complete their first milestone, as disbursement for the milestone is only released upon completion and review approval.

The Process

Submission

Proposals must be submitted through the Deep Funding submission portal, which enforces strict guidelines, including mandatory fields and character limits, to encourage succinctness.

Expert Reviewers may, or may not, contact proposers through comments to provide eligibility feedback based on the requirements of the round.

Review

The review process will span for 4 weeks. Technical experts and BGI community reviewers will assess projects for eligibility and quality. At any time, teams may be requested to attend a live, recorded meeting with reviewers to discuss or clarify any queries related to their proposal.

BGI Community Reviews

The BGI Expert Reviewers will assess proposals for eligibility, and subjectively assess the quality - Impact and Innovation - of each eligible proposal.   BGI expert reviewers will be volunteers from the BGI community. The reviewers’ goal is to create a brief report on each proposal and give it a score. 

The process involves several groups of experts meeting to review and rate proposals together over some characteristics:

  • Does it conform to the round theme? (BGI: social or environmental impact, or contributing to Beneficial AI Systems) (Yes/No)
  • Is it both safe and ethical? (Yes/No)
  • Impact (score out of 10)
  • Innovation (score out of 10)

Reviewers and proposals will be matched broadly according to reviewers’ expertise. The exact distribution of reviewers will be determined by the number of submitted proposals and reviewers.

Technical reviews

After the BGI community reviewers complete their evaluations, proposals that receive a score of 7 or above will proceed to the Deep Funding Technical Review Team for further assessment. This team will evaluate proposals based on two key criteria:

  • Feasibility – Is the project technically achievable?
  • Team Capability – Does the proposing team have the necessary skills, experience, and capacity to successfully complete the project?

Each proposal will be reviewed by an Expert Reviewer, who will provide a concise report outlining their assessment and final decision: Approved or Rejected.

Appeal

Once the technical review report is delivered by e-mail, the proposing team has 48 hours to submit an appeal via email if they believe the decision was unfair based on technical grounds. The appeal must specifically address the points raised by the reviewer and provide clear reasoning to contest the judgment.

Upon receiving an appeal, a new set of two Expert Reviewers will reassess the proposal, including: 

  • The original submission
  • The technical review report
  • The appeal statement

The final decision will be determined by majority rule: if at least two out of the three assigned reviewers (including the original reviewer) reach the same conclusion, that decision stands.

If the number of proposals in the round deviates significantly from what is expected, this process may be adapted. If this happens, the core Nexus team will decide on the best approach given the circumstances. The team will give a clear explanation of the final process and the reasoning behind it for transparency.

Interviews

If needed, interviews will be held with proposers and conducted by reviewers. Expert reviewers reserve the right, at any moment during the Review period, to request a live and recorded online meeting with the proposer team to confirm their technical ability to deliver the solutions they are proposing.

After the interview, the reviewers will produce a report with their findings and will signal whether the proposal should be included in or excluded from the round.

If a team cannot attend such a call during the week after the AI Review week, it will be disqualified from the selection process.

Proposals Awareness Week

This week serves as a platform for proposers - who have successfully passed both the BGI Community Reviews and Technical Expert Reviews - to present their projects to the broader community, articulate their value propositions, and encourage informed voting decisions. Effective engagement during this period can significantly enhance visibility and support for proposals before the voting phase begins.

Some suggested strategies for creating the desired awareness are:

  • Share key information about your proposal on platforms such as X, LinkedIn, and Facebook, ensuring clarity and accessibility.
  • Utilize relevant hashtags, such as #DeepFunding and #ProposalAwareness, to maximize reach.
  • Actively participate in discussions, addressing questions, clarifying doubts, and engaging with potential voters.
  • Host an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on Mattermost, Discord, or X Spaces to engage directly with the community and address inquiries.
  • Create a concise video presentation (3 minutes tops) summarizing the proposal and its anticipated impact, to be displayed on your proposal's page on Deep Funding Portal, and / or shared on your social media
  • Design infographics that communicate key aspects of the proposal in a visually engaging format.

Voting

The final selection will be based on a combination of BGI community reviewer scores and a Web2 community vote. The exact voting platform has yet to be determined. The community vote will be weighted at 60%, while the reviewer scores will be worth 40% of the final score.

Timeline

10 - 24 February: Open for submissions

24 February - 24 March: Review period

24 - 31 March: Proposal awareness week

31 March - 7 April: Voting

07 - 14 April: Vote count

WC 21 April: Winners announced!

“Building a Compassionate and Abundant Future”

This grant program is an initiative within the BGI Nexus project in SingularityNET that empowers AI developers and innovators. Funds will be distributed to community-selected projects to foster the development of beneficial AI applications and initiatives that align with SingularityNET’s vision for beneficial AI and AGI. 

These grants, which do not require repayment or shares, aim to shift the locus of AI and AGI development from large companies focused on economic ends to a more open and democratic AI ecosystem, and create real solutions for real-world problems.

Through these grants, we aim to contribute to a diverse ecology of AI that benefits life and contributes to the flourishing of humans, societies, and the biosphere.

Award

The total funding available for BGI Nexus Round 1 is $500,000 in token, with a max cap of $50,000 USD per project.

Note: Being the first test round of the new BGI Nexus funding program, and the first partner round on the Deep Funding platform, there are many unknowns. Therefore, some program parameters may need to be adjusted in response to how the grant round progress unfolds. The review and selection process will be refined as the round progresses to be in line with the demands of the round and the number of proposals.

In-progress changes will be minimized as far as possible, and any changes will be clearly communicated at the earliest possible opportunity to the entire community via email and announcement channels; participants are responsible for monitoring these channels and receiving all updates.

BGI Nexus is a community-centered funding 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’ who represent the wider community.
As a proposer, by answering any questions from the community (or from the coordinating team) promptly and concisely, you will nurture a healthy dialogue 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 and outcomes of BGI development.

Any proposed project must support the mission and vision of the BGI Nexus

The purpose of the BGI Nexus is to foster discussions, share resources, and provide funding for developing beneficial AI, AGI, and other impactful technologies that benefit life and contribute to the flourishing of humans, societies, and the biosphere. 

This means that all proposals are welcome that:

  • Deliberately aim for social and environmental good
  • Take measures to minimize the chances of detrimental outcomes in line with a strong approach to safety and ethics

“Social or environmental good” is defined as outcomes that include:

  • Technical solutions to the poly-crisis:
    • E.g. environmental and regenerative technologies; social technologies that provide solutions to key challenges such as logistics or coordination; educational technologies.
  • Contributions to AI and AGI that specifically aim at solutions to prevent AGI harms or proactively seek out beneficial outcomes:
    • E.g. safety monitoring solutions, or components that maximize the chances of positive and compassionate behavior in AGI systems)
  • Technical projects for social benefit such as increasing equality, diversity, and inclusion in the AI and AGI space.

Other beneficial outcomes not listed here, can be considered by expert reviewers. However, the beneficial component should not be an add-on but a central goal of the project. It should also have a strong AI component. While not mandatory in this special round, proposals aiming to onboard onto or utilize AI services on the SNET decentralized marketplace are particularly welcome!

For now, we are not considering areas unrelated to AI and AGI projects, though the initiative may expand into more general areas at some time in the future if there are sufficient resources to do so.

For more information about the goals of BGI Nexus, please read: 

https://bgicollective.singularitynet.io/

Round proposals MUST:

  • Be centered around social or environmental good, with clear applicability to real-world problems
  • Contain an impact proposition, with such topics as breadth of impact (impact at an individual, community, or global level), and depth of impact (how profound the impact to abundance, flourishing, regeneration, etc). Convincing impact research is a plus.
  • Be technical in nature – building and delivering AI systems that address societal and environmental needs, and impactfully solve real-world problems. 
  • Address how they handle ethical considerations, particularly for technologies, such as facial recognition or anything handling user data, that could have a significant societal impact
  • Describe a safety plan throughout the milestones. This will be monitored by reviewers and will be a factor in decisions around the disbursement of funds for milestones.

Proposer teams MUST:

  • Have a complete and professional set of members – including all needed roles to develop and roll out.
  • Maintain communication with the DF program, and join the designated Telegram Channel as this will be the official announcement channel for this Round.
  • Execute project milestones independently, without direct support from SingularityNET or Deep Funding personnel unless otherwise agreed.
  • Be resourced to complete their first milestone, as disbursement for the milestone is only released upon completion and review approval.

The Process

Submission

Proposals must be submitted through the Deep Funding submission portal, which enforces strict guidelines, including mandatory fields and character limits, to encourage succinctness.

Expert Reviewers may, or may not, contact proposers through comments to provide eligibility feedback based on the requirements of the round.

Review

The review process will span for 4 weeks. Technical experts and BGI community reviewers will assess projects for eligibility and quality. At any time, teams may be requested to attend a live, recorded meeting with reviewers to discuss or clarify any queries related to their proposal.

BGI Community Reviews

The BGI Expert Reviewers will assess proposals for eligibility, and subjectively assess the quality – Impact and Innovation – of each eligible proposal.   BGI expert reviewers will be volunteers from the BGI community. The reviewers’ goal is to create a brief report on each proposal and give it a score. 

The process involves several groups of experts meeting to review and rate proposals together over some characteristics:

  • Does it conform to the round theme? (BGI: social or environmental impact, or contributing to Beneficial AI Systems) (Yes/No)
  • Is it both safe and ethical? (Yes/No)
  • Impact (score out of 10)
  • Innovation (score out of 10)

Reviewers and proposals will be matched broadly according to reviewers’ expertise. The exact distribution of reviewers will be determined by the number of submitted proposals and reviewers.

Technical reviews

After the BGI community reviewers complete their evaluations, proposals that receive a score of 7 or above will proceed to the Deep Funding Technical Review Team for further assessment. This team will evaluate proposals based on two key criteria:

  • Feasibility – Is the project technically achievable?
  • Team Capability – Does the proposing team have the necessary skills, experience, and capacity to successfully complete the project?

Each proposal will be reviewed by an Expert Reviewer, who will provide a concise report outlining their assessment and final decision: Approved or Rejected.

Appeal

Once the technical review report is delivered by e-mail, the proposing team has 48 hours to submit an appeal via email if they believe the decision was unfair based on technical grounds. The appeal must specifically address the points raised by the reviewer and provide clear reasoning to contest the judgment.

Upon receiving an appeal, a new set of two Expert Reviewers will reassess the proposal, including: 

  • The original submission
  • The technical review report
  • The appeal statement

The final decision will be determined by majority rule: if at least two out of the three assigned reviewers (including the original reviewer) reach the same conclusion, that decision stands.

If the number of proposals in the round deviates significantly from what is expected, this process may be adapted. If this happens, the core Nexus team will decide on the best approach given the circumstances. The team will give a clear explanation of the final process and the reasoning behind it for transparency.

Interviews

If needed, interviews will be held with proposers and conducted by reviewers. Expert reviewers reserve the right, at any moment during the Review period, to request a live and recorded online meeting with the proposer team to confirm their technical ability to deliver the solutions they are proposing.

After the interview, the reviewers will produce a report with their findings and will signal whether the proposal should be included in or excluded from the round.

If a team cannot attend such a call during the week after the AI Review week, it will be disqualified from the selection process.

Proposals Awareness Week

This week serves as a platform for proposers – who have successfully passed both the BGI Community Reviews and Technical Expert Reviews – to present their projects to the broader community, articulate their value propositions, and encourage informed voting decisions. Effective engagement during this period can significantly enhance visibility and support for proposals before the voting phase begins.

Some suggested strategies for creating the desired awareness are:

  • Share key information about your proposal on platforms such as X, LinkedIn, and Facebook, ensuring clarity and accessibility.
  • Utilize relevant hashtags, such as #DeepFunding and #ProposalAwareness, to maximize reach.
  • Actively participate in discussions, addressing questions, clarifying doubts, and engaging with potential voters.
  • Host an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on Mattermost, Discord, or X Spaces to engage directly with the community and address inquiries.
  • Create a concise video presentation (3 minutes tops) summarizing the proposal and its anticipated impact, to be displayed on your proposal’s page on Deep Funding Portal, and / or shared on your social media
  • Design infographics that communicate key aspects of the proposal in a visually engaging format.

Voting

The final selection will be based on a combination of BGI community reviewer scores and a Web2 community vote. The exact voting platform has yet to be determined. The community vote will be weighted at 60%, while the reviewer scores will be worth 40% of the final score.

Timeline

10 – 24 February: Open for submissions

24 February – 24 March: Review period

24 – 31 March: Proposal awareness week

31 March – 7 April: Voting

07 – 14 April: Vote count

WC 21 April: Winners announced!

A global community building a network of decentralized and beneficial AI services.

SingularityNET Collaborative Initiative
Product
Program
Resources
SingularityNET

© 2024 Deep Funding

feedback_icon