ISIF submissions for 2010 comes to a successful close

ISIF, the Information Society Innovation Fund, received a total of 207 submissions from applicants in 24 different economies in the Asia Pacific Region.

The Information Society Innovation Fund (ISIF) is a joint initiative between the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Internet Society (ISOC), and the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) that is aimed at stimulating creative solutions to ICT development needs in the Asia Pacific region. The domain registry, dotAsia, is also supporting the program.

For projects to be implemented in 2010, ISIF will provide grants of up to AUD 40,000 per project to help advance local and regional projects aimed at introducing, improving, and applying Internet and other digital communications technologies for the benefit of Asia-Pacific users and communities.

The submissions were received from 25 economies: Vietnam, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Samoa, Rep. of Korea, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Palau, Pakistan, New Zealand, New Caledonia, Nepal, Myanmar, Maldives, Malaysia, Mongolia, Laos, Indonesia, India, Fiji, China, Cambodia, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Australia.

Now that the submissions have been received, the Grants Evaluation Committee (GEC) will review and evaluate the applications and then create a shortlist of applicants.

The members of the GEC comprise Paul Wilson and Ma Yan (for APNIC), Rajnesh Singh and Gerard Ross (for ISOC), and Richard Fuchs and Phet Sayo (from IDRC). The committee will utilize an online evaluation system to pre-screen, evaluate, and comment on the proposals based on the following criteria:

• Innovation
• Feasibility
• Alignment of proposal objectives with ISIF objectives
• Demonstrated need/benefit
• Community participation/ownership
• Monitoring/Evaluation/Documentation strength
• Whether a sustainability strategy is in place
• Leveraging of existing techniques and technologies to produce innovative practical solutions, rather than original 'ground-up' development or basic research work
• Demonstrated ability to build innovative capacities within other organizations in developing Asia Pacific economies
• Institutional capacity

The committee will meet in Brisbane in November 2009 to select the final group from the shortlisted applicants. They will then publish a formal announcement soon after the selection meeting.

The final group of shortlisted applicants will receive feedback from the GEC members and will have the opportunity to improve their applications and finalize their proposals.

The final list of recipients for 2010 will be announced during February 2010.