Life After Hoon School + UF Grants Office Hours

The Foundation's Grants Program consists of three distinct types of grants, each of which is crafted to provide a specific blend of hands-on learning, productive output, and community involvement. While the details of how each of these grants are slightly different, the overarching goal is the same: provide a pathway for developers to build on urbit that grows their skills and the amount of focus they put towards contributing to the network--Ultimately, getting as many people working full time on urbit as possible. The three types of available grants are Proposals, Apprenticeships, and Bounties.

Office Hours

Starting April 28th 

~sarlev-sarsen

 will be hosting video call office hours to discuss the different grant opportunities that are open, help you craft a compelling proposal, and otherwise provide information on the grants program.

Thursdays, 4:30-6:30pm Pacific - Join Link: meet.google.com/jjw-ybbf-pqn
Fridays, 10:00-11:00am Pacific - Join Link: meet.google.com/dit-mbmw-ppc

TL;DR: As you complete Hoon School Live, the Urbit Foundation is interested in supporting your efforts to build things on urbit. For most, that will mean developing a userspace application that the world (or maybe just a unique subculture) will use and enjoy. For others, that will mean working through a pathway to becoming a contributor to kernel development. If you are interested in getting involved, check out the Grants page on urbit.org or DM 

~sarlev-sarsen

 and 

~taller-ravnut

.

Proposals

Proposals are the core of the grants program, and the element of which grantees have the most agency to generate--because they are explicitly community generated. Have a project or app idea of your own? Putting together a proposal is your starting point. The way this work is you will create a group in which you document your proposal (as a notebook post) and provide a space for discussing the idea. Once you have generated this group, submit it to the Urbit Foundation using this form and we will share it with the Mars Invisible College (MIC)--a group of community members who have contributed to the grants program in the past and shown themselves to be positive contributors to the network. It is members of the MIC that you will need to sway to pick up and champion your proposal. It is also your responsibility to promote your idea more broadly to solicit actionable feedback and refine your idea into something of value to the network. If you can capture the interest of a Champion, you will work with them to refine your proposal into something that is well defined enough to be split into distinct milestones with measurable outcomes. Each milestone completed will be rewarded with payment of a star, and so should be sufficiently defined and contain substantial enough deliverables to warrant such a reward. Due the the fluid nature of software projects, the maximum number of milestones per proposal is five. Following the successful completion of all milestones, additional discussions can take place to determine the best path forward for continued development of a project.

If your project is picked up by a Champion, you will then have it reviewed by an Oracle to ensure that the requested compensation is commensurate with the work proposed. This assessment takes into account:

The Foundation reserves the right to make changes to the proposal, refuse funding, or otherwise negotiate terms that align with its role in stewardship of the network. If your proposal is picked up, it will be submitted as a PR to urbit.org, you will go through a light KYC and contracting step, and then you will be able to begin work. Please note, while we will not say "you cannot work on your idea prior to execution of contracts", the address space you will receive as a part of your grant is for work that you are going to do in the future, not things that you have already completed and there is no guarantee of funding if you do not yet have a signed contract. If you know of someone who has done work outside of an official grant and you think is deserving of address space, you can always submit a 'recommendation for a gift'.

As you begin work on your newly funded proposal, your Champion is there to provide a guiding hand and help clear blockers to completing your work. They are welcome to provide as much coaching and support as they want, but the intent is for their level of effort to be in the realm of a 30 minute call every one or two weeks, along with light asynchronous chat guidance to point you in the right direction to solve your problems. They are not there to do your work for you. Your champion will be the one vetting your work to confirm milestones are completed, so if they are doing the work themselves that defeats the purpose of funding your grant and both you and the Champion are liable to have your contracts terminated. Upon completion of a milestone that has been approved by your champion, you will submit an invoice and any relevant work product to the Foundation for final review and payment.

Apprenticeships

In the event that you do not have your own idea, or would prefer to work more closely with a team, the Foundation also stewards an apprenticeship program, helping place qualified candidates with experienced mentors across the different organizations building on the network. Each apprenticeship will have specific experience requirements, work products, or working relationships created, but the intent is for apprentices to work closely with experienced contributors on the urbit network so as to deepen their understanding of how to best build, or build on, urbit. Apprenticeships are generally within an urbit company, the following of which already have apprentices or will be looking to take on apprentices in short order:

If you are interested in an apprenticeship listed on urbit.org, please use the link within that specific listing to apply. If you would like to be considered more generally for apprenticeships, you can submit your information here. Similar to proposals, following your acceptance, there will be a short KYC and contracting step that needs to be completed prior to starting work (for which you would like to be compensated). Apprenticeships can, with some subtle differences, be thought of along the lines of more traditional tech internships. They have a set funding model--1 star upon successful completion--and maximum duration--three months--at the conclusion of which the mentor you are working with should have imparted enough knowledge on you that you should be able to proceed forward on a complex undertaking under your own power. This may mean submitting a proposal for a solo project, it may mean taking on an open bounty, or it could potentially mean getting hired on by the company with which you have been collaborating for the past few months. Or perhaps even starting your own company and applying for funding from The Combine.

Bounties

Last, but certainly not least, are Bounties. These grants are generated by members of the MIC, Urbit companies, or the Foundation itself and each is structured around a very specifically defined deliverable or set of deliverables that would be of help and relevance to the network as a whole. Bounties are a good option for developers who appreciate having a predefined set of outcomes and clear measures of success. Listed on urbit.org, if you would like to contribute to the project by taking on a bounty you should use the link contained within a specific bounty to apply. The Foundation and the bounty's author will speak with you, determine whether or not you are a good fit for the project, and then, just like with Proposals or Apprenticeships, we'll have to do some light KYC and paperwork.

Bounties are intended to be well defined enough that a self directed person (or proactive team of contributors), could execute the grant with minimal intervention. That said, the author of the bounty will remain accessible to clear blockers, refine deliverable definitions, or otherwise serve as the shepherd to ensure the grantee has the inputs necessary to successfully complete the project as defined.

Eligibility

In order to be eligible for participation in the Urbit Foundation grants program, you need to have completed Hoon School and gone through the Gall Guide. At present (April 2022), the vetting for this is a reputational promise and the reality that to complete most grants you will need these skills. Future iterations will include more formal certification processes, following the growth of the Developer Experience Program.

More detailed policies are available in the Grants Program Notebook in the Foundation Group, here:

~wolref-podlex/foundation