The Digital Makers Fund

by Startacus Admin

When something has the underlying objective of helping people “create, not just consume”, it immediately strikes a chord with us here at Startacus and the latest initiative to do just that is the recently launched Digital Makers Fund.

The Fund which is backed by a pretty impressive bunch of organisations - Nesta, the Nominet Trust and Mozilla has just announced an open call for ideas which aim to inspire and increase the number of young people who engage and participate in digital making activities. Those ideas could be new products that can help teach young people digital making skills; ideas that help young people to create digital products that they can in turn show and share with others or even innovative ideas that encourage and inspire digital making amongst young people in the places that they use and frequent.

If you are involved with a project or initiative of this type, then you are eligible to apply, provided your project has at this point gone beyond the concept and the prototype stage of development.
With a prize fund of £225,000 available, it is expected that several projects will be supported and will receive grants of between £20,000 - £50,000. However that’s not all. Successful applicants will also receive a bespoke package of support including advice and mentoring, access to Nesta, the Nominet Trust and Mozilla’s expertise and networks as well as desk and event space.
Applications are being accepted until 17 January 2013 and it is expected that grants will be awarded in March 2013.
Full details of how to apply as well as all the detailed Terms and Conditions can be found on the Nesta site.

The theme of Digital Making is one which is going to be pretty prominent during the coming year and we’ll make sure to keep you all posted on any other projects and initiatives that might be of interest in this area.

• #fund
• #development
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Published on: 19th November 2012