Rounds

September 2024 to February 2025

For the 16th round of the Prototype Fund, we have not chosen an additional thematic focus besides the four basic pillars of civic tech, data literacy, data security and software infrastructure.

March 2024 to September 2024

For the 15th round of the Prototype Fund, we have not chosen an additional thematic focus besides the four basic pillars of civic tech, data literacy, data security and software infrastructure.

September 2023 to February 2024

For the 14th round of the Prototype Fund, we have not chosen an additional thematic focus besides the four basic pillars of civic tech, data literacy, data security and software infrastructure.

March 2023 to August 2023

For the 13th round of the Prototype Fund, we have not chosen an additional thematic focus besides the four basic pillars of civic tech, data literacy, data security and software infrastructure.

You can read the background to this as well as the overarching findings from the accompanying research for round 13 in this blog post. The accompanying research report can be found here.

March 2022 to February 2023

For the 12th round of the Prototype Fund, we have not chosen an additional thematic focus besides the four basic pillars of civic tech, data literacy, data security and software infrastructure.

You can read the background to this as well as the overarching findings from the accompanying research for round 12 in this blog post. The accompanying research report can be found here.

March 2022 to August 2022

For the 11th round of the Prototype Fund, we have not chosen an additional thematic focus besides the four basic pillars of civic tech, data literacy, data security and software infrastructure.

You can read the background to this as well as the overarching findings from the accompanying research for round 11 in this blog post. The accompanying research report can be found here.

In the course of the #WirVsVirus hackathon, which took place as an online hackathon from March 20 to 22, 2020, with the aim of pooling the creative potential of civil society and working together on solutions to the many challenges posed by Covid-19, numerous great projects were created on a wide variety of focal points.

Here we present to you the 34 projects that we are funding as part of the support program together with the BMBF and the DLR for three months in the summer of 2020 to quickly develop the solution ideas into prototypes as open source software and make them usable.

September 2021 until February 2022

For the 10th round of the Prototype Fund, we have not chosen an additional thematic focus besides the four basic pillars of civic tech, data literacy, data security and software infrastructure.

You can read the background to this as well as the overarching findings from the accompanying research for round 9 in this blog post. The accompanying research report can be found here.

Demo Week of round 10.

March 2021 to August 2021

For the 9th round of the Prototype Fund, we have not chosen an additional thematic focus besides the four basic pillars of civic tech, data literacy, data security and software infrastructure.

You can read the background to this as well as the overarching findings from the accompanying research for round 9 in this blog post. The accompanying research report can be found here.

Demo Week of Round 9.

To the final reports of the projects.

March 2020 to August 2020

For Round 7, in addition to the four basic pillars of Civic Tech, Data Literacy, Data Security and Software Infrastructure, we have chosen an additional thematic focus:

Engineering Trust – Building Trust

Civic tech tools that enable better access to information and strengthen public discourse on the one hand – fear of bots and voter manipulation on the other: What is the role of trust in the interaction of society and technology and which measures and tools have a positive impact on trust building in the digital but also analog space?

To conclude the round, the teams presented their projects at the Prototype Fund’s first Demo Week.

To the final reports of the projects.

September 2019 to February 2020

For the 6th round of the Prototype Fund, we have chosen an additional thematic focus in addition to the four basic pillars of Civic Tech, Data Literacy, Data Security, and Software Infrastructure:

Commit: Innovate System

Technology plays an increasingly important role in global challenges such as climate change, species extinction and resource scarcity, but (tech) communities are often not resilient enough in terms of personal, financial and knowledge resources to withstand the coming challenges and help shape the world and the environment in a sustainable way.

Demo Day of Round 6.

To the final reports of the projects.

March 2019 until August 2019

For the 5th round of the Prototype Fund we have picked an additional thematic focus in addition to the four basic pillars of the program, Civic Tech, Data Literacy, Data Security and Software Infrastructure:

Letting machines learn-technologies for our futures

New technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning are on everyone’s lips – but they are not (yet) in our hands. With the focus of the 5th cohort, we wanted to encourage more people to help shape new technologies ™ and thus our future.

Demo Day of Round 5.

To the final reports of the projects.

September 2018 until February 2019

For the 4th round of the Prototype Fund we have picked an additional thematic focus in addition to the four basic pillars of the program, Civic Tech, Data Literacy, Data Security and Software Infrastructure:

Power to the Users!

Open Source as a principle has the potential to empower users and to improve the Internet in regard to parameters such as decentralization, openness and security. These projects implement this approach in exemplary fashion.

Photos from Demo Day Round 4.

To the final reports of the projects.

March 2018 until August 2018

For the 3rd round of the Prototype Fund, we have chosen an additional thematic focus in addition to the four basic pillars Civic Tech, Data Literacy, Data Security and Software Infrastructure:

Diversity – Open Source for everyone!

This diversity in the digital world can look quite different: Whether diverse target groups for tools, in the form of diverse teams or “Security through Diversity”.

Photos and video from the Demo Day of Round 3.

To the final reports of the projects.

September 2017 until February 2018

For the second round of the Prototype Fund, we have chosen an additional thematic focus in addition to the four basic pillars of Civic Tech, Data Literacy, Data Security and Software Infrastructure:

Tools for a strong civil society

In this cohort, we´re concentrating on tools which assist in connecting and organising civil society and enable people to become self-determined and act politically informed.

The Demo Day of Round 2 – and the video.

The final reports of the projects.

March 2017 until August 2017

Round 1 served as a general assessment of the Open Source field.
Projects from the four core funding areas were funded without a special focus:

• Civic Tech: Digital tools for citizens
• Data Literacy: Applications around the use and analysis of (open) data and thepromotion of a sovereign data practice.
• Data security: Tools with a focus on privacy, secure communication/data transfer and data economy.
• Software infrastructure: Software and tools that enable and simplify the operation of projects mentioned above.

The Demo Day of Round 1 – and the video.

The final reports of the projects.