Out of curiosity, what happened with this – were there any announcements about funded microgrants, or any timeline for when judging will finish?
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IIRC there was a recent statement “somewhere” (Mastodon?) that the jury was currently working on a decision.
Just for good measure: the competition concept has never made any sense, coupled with the lack of a clear communicated scope (which is why there are so many paid mapping obscured with a thin veneer of development submissions), and was always silly and it would be a good thing for the whole undertaking to vanish without a trace.
Hello @Dustin_C
Thank you so much for reaching out. I’d also like everyone to know we’re working to make this process as fair as possible. Over time, we saw that some ideas requested just a few hundred euros or pounds, while others were closer to 6,000 euros. Because of this big range, we realized we needed to update our approach.
We want to be certain that, no matter how we select the top ideas for microgrants, the scoring process is fair and considers both project size and potential impact for OpenStreetMap. We’re adding a few new parameters to our scoring to reflect this. Please rest assured: our jury members are taking their role seriously and reviewing proposals with care, looking not just at the technical side, but also at the human impact.
I know it’s taken a bit longer than expected, but we believe it’s worth it to get this right. Our goal is to finish scoring by the end of October, get feedback from the engineering working group and jury, and then finalize things with the broader committee. We aim to complete the selection before the end of November, so the funding aligns with the 2025 calendar year.
Thank you for your patience and understanding—we want this process to be both thorough and fair for everyone involved.
Salim on behalf of the EWG + Jurors.
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Update on Engineering Microgrants 2025: Program Announcement:
Hello everyone,
Here’s an update on the Microgrants announcement. We’ve now completed the scoring of all submitted ideas.
Next, we’ll move into the filtering phase. As mentioned earlier, some proposals request only a few hundred, while others go up to 5–6 thousand euros. Our goal is to strike a fair balance between the scores, the budget, and the potential impact of each idea.
It took the jurors some time to go through all submissions carefully, given the detailed evaluation parameters. Some ideas were truly brilliant but might be challenging to implement, while others are simpler with a more modest impact on the OpenStreetMap community.
A few proposals were not entirely engineering-focused, but we’ve still considered their potential contribution, especially wherever there’s a meaningful engineering or technical dimension.
Thank you to everyone who contributed!
Salim
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Hello everyone,
By now, all individuals and groups who submitted proposals, both those selected for the grant and those who were not should have received an email notification regarding the status of their nominated ideas.
If you applied and haven’t received any message yet, please check the GitHub issues in which your idea was posted or spam folder, and note that some emails unfortunately bounced back because the address provided was invalid or missing. If you think this might be the case, feel free to contact us/me directly so we can verify your details.
To those who weren’t successful this time: thank you for taking part and sharing your ideas. There will always be future rounds and new opportunities to refine your proposals we truly appreciate your contributions and are happy to have learned more about your projects and motivations.
A big thank you goes out to the jurors for their careful review and dedication, all done on a volunteer basis. Thanks as well to the Engineering Working Group for managing the process and helping us stay on track, even with some technical and logistical delays.
Next, we’ll formalize milestones for the selected ideas. Once the final presentations pass through the Engineering Working Group, we’ll share a public announcement listing the winning ideas and recipients.
Thank you all,
Salim on behalf of the EWG and esteemed Jurors
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Hello everyone,
The first and second rounds of presentations with the winning candidates have concluded successfully, with one exception: a candidate who neither responded after winning nor completed their presentation. We will proceed without them.
We’ve created a GitHub repository for the Lights contract, which all winning participants must sign. It then requires countersignature and approval by the chairman or an EWG member. we expect completion by week’s end. Out of eight winning ideas, seven are confirmed.
FYI. The communication working group will announce them officially.
Salim
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