NGI Zero

Paving the way to the Next Generation Internet

NGI Zero is a coalition of non-profit organisations that supports the development of technology commons as building blocks for the Next Generation Internet (NGI).

It provides grants and support services to free an open source technology projects that contribute to a human-centered, trustworthy, secure and privacy-friendly internet for all. NGI Zero is made possible with financial support from the European Commission as part of the Next Generation Internet initiative.

Purpose of this website

Please note that this website only contains static information about NGI Zero. The primary sources for communication are the websites of the NGI Zero partners. This website serves as a signpost to direct you there.

Much information can be found on the website of NLnet foundation, lead of the NGI Zero coalition, at: https://nlnet.nl/NGI0/. There you'll find an up-to-date overview of NGI Zero grant programmes, the form to apply for funding, an overiew of available support services and much more.

Other communication channels

Subscribe to the NGI Zero newsletter for info about the NGI Zero community, open calls, support services and developments. Or receive the newsletter by way of the RSS feed.

Come and talk to us on Mastodon.

Listen to our podcasts: In the NGI Zero podcast we talk to the people who are building the Next Generation Internet (by NLnet). The NGI beneficiary podcasts are recordings of stand-up meetings (by OW2).

Watch the NGI Zero webinars. The Open Source Webinars (by OW2) and the NGI Zero webinars (by NLnet).

Free and open source projects funded by NGI Zero

At the heart of NGI Zero are the people who are working on free and open source digital technologies to create a human-centered internet for all. We invite you to have a look at the close to 1000 projects that have received NGI Zero funding. You can also check out the section with interviews and stories with the project teams.

NGI Zero coalition partners

Here is an overview of all the organisations involved in NGI Zero across all grant programmes. In alphabetical order:

APELL (Association Professionnelle Européenne du Logiciel Libre) is Europe’s Open Source Business Association. APELL brings national Open Source Software (‘OSS’) organisations together into a European network to provide them with peer support and collective marketing, as well as capacity building and policy support for public affairs, both nationally and on the EU-level.

Association for Progressive Communications (APC) is a global network and organisation that strives towards easy and affordable access to a free and open internet to improve the lives of people and create a more just world. The APC network has 62 organisational members and 29 associates active in 74 countries and five continents.

The Faculty of Information Technology of Brno University of Technology represents the second-largest technical university in the Czech Republic. It comprises 8 faculties with more than 23,000 students and 3,000 staff members.

Center for the Cultivation of Technology (CCT) is a charitable non-profit host organization for international Free Software projects with ample experience in mentoring and nurturing early stage projects.

Commons Caretakers BV (CCBV) is a not-for-profit company that provides targeted support to commons efforts - development of open source software, open hardware, open education materials and more. CCBV brings together domain experts, mentors and multidisciplinary thinkers and strategists.

Free Silicon Foundation (FSi) promotes Free and Open Source (FOS) CAD tools for designing integrated circuits, sharing of hardware designs and libraries, common standards and the freedom of users in the context of silicon integrated circuits. Organisers of the Free Silicon Conference.

Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is an association that builds its work on over 1,500 volunteers and supporters throughout Europe, all dedicated to free and open source software. Facilitates the world’s largest network of over 400 lawyers and technologists with an interest in legal matters around free and open source software and hardware. FSFE maintains the leading Reuse.Software best practices on copyright assignment, and within NGI Zero helps projects to apply these – both with tooling and hands-on work.

HAN University of Applied Sciences, dept. Inclusive Design & Engineering - one of the core competence building centres of accessibility in the Netherlands, with significant in-house expertise on accessibility auditing.

Internet Society Switzerland (ISOC.ch) is a recognized Chapter of the global Internet Society, founded in 1992. With a global membership of > 100 000 members and aims to ensure a multi-stakeholder participation in the development of the Internet. ISOC has the goal to benefit the whole community, including academic, professional, business and private Internet users.

NixOS Foundation - Foundation supporting development and use of purely functional configuration management tools, in particular NixOS and related projects.

NLnet Foundation - Grantmaking public benefit organisation that supports organisations and people who contribute to an open internet for all. It funds projects that help fix the internet through open hardware, open software, open standards, open science and open data. After its historical contribution to the early internet in Europe in the 1980's, NLnet has been financially supporting the open internet since 1997.

OpenForum Europe (OFE) is a European open source software and open standard not-for-profit think tank. Its key objective is to contribute to achieve an open and competitive Digital ecosystem in Europe. OFE advises European policy-makers and legislators on the merits of openness in computing and provides technical analysis and explanation.

OW2 is an independent, global, open-source software community that fosters open source projects and actually delivers software. The only such non-profit open source organisation of EU origin and DNA.

Petites Singularités - Non profit organisation working with free sofware and focusing on collective practices.

Radically Open Security (ROS) is the world’s first not-for-profit computer security consultancy company. Worked for major clients such as Mozilla, Google, the European Commission and Open Technology Fund. Co-operated the security auditing part of the emergency tech review facility for the European Commission on contact tracing and other COVID related technologies.

Tolerant Networks - a Trinity College Dublin campus company focused on robust interoperable communications mechanisms for extreme and unpredictable environments, which delivers its standardisation experience.

NGI Zero grant programmes

Active funds

The goal of the NGI Zero Commons Fund is to reclaim the public nature of the internet. It is the widest in scope of the active funds and supports projects that help to deliver, mature and scale new and existing internet commons across the whole technology spectrum.

NGI Zero Review is a three year support programme offering various targeted services to free and open source projects within the Next Generation Internet initiative. Support services include security and accessibility audits, license due dilligence and mentoring.

Active but no longer receiving new proposals

NGI Zero Entrust focuses on trustworthiness and data sovereignty. The fund is still running but there'll be no more open calls. Here is an overview of the projects funded within the NGI0 Entrust programme.

The goal of NGI Zero Core is to Upgrade the open Internet architecture. The fund is still active but there'll be no more open calls. Here is an overview of the projects funded within the NGI0 Core programme.

Concluded programmes

NGI Zero PET supported Privacy & Trust Enhancing Technologies. In total there have been twelve calls for NGI Zero PET, between October 1st 2018 and December 1st 2020 allocating 5.6 million euro in small to medium-size R&D grants. Here is an overview of the projects funded within the NGI0 PET programme.

The goal of NGI Zero Discovery supplied funding for Next Generation Search and Discovery. The programme had seventeen calls between February 2019 and October 2021, allocating a total of 5.6 million euro in small and medium sized grants. . The fund is still active but there'll be no more open calls. Here is an overview of the projects funded within the NGI0 Discovery programme.

Overview support services

The NGI Zero coalition offers support services to free and open source projects within the Next Generation Internet initiative. Goal is to improve the quality, maturity and inclusiveness of the digital commons. To reclaim the public nature of the internet we need shared building blocks which are accessible, sustainable and secure. You can find the always up-to-date page about support services here and information on how to apply for them. The table below shows an overview of the services and the NGI Zero partners offering them.

Support service	Partner	Support service	Partner
Accessibility audits	HAN	Community building and mentoring	CCT
Copyright and license advice	FSFE	Diversity and inclusion management	APC
Internationalisation, translation and localisation	CCBV	Packaging	NixOS
Security audits	ROS	Software testing	CCBV
Standardisation	TN	Technical writing	CCBV
UX Testing	CCBV

Acknowledgements

NGI Zero is made possible with financial support from the European Commission's Next Generation Internet programme, under the aegis of DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology. NGI Zero receives funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreements Nos 825310 (NGI0 PET), 825322 (NGI0 Discovery), 101069594 (NGI0 Entrust), 101070519 (NGI0 Review), 101092990 (NGI0 Core) and 101135429 (NGI0 Commons Fund).