Funding

netidee Funding Program

With its funding program netidee, the Internet Stiftung promotes the further development and versatile use of the internet in Austria, including scientific research.

In the spirit of positive social development, the netidee funding program is intended to provide effective impetus for innovative and self-organized advancement of the internet and its versatile use in Austria on the basis of openness, transparency and sharing. Funding is available e.g. for projects that focus on the proof of concept of new technologies or concepts, for grassroot civil society projects as well as product or service innovations. The projects should improve, broaden, and extend the internet in terms of quality and quantity in the area of basic technologies, infrastructure or applications. Decisions on funding assess the potential contribution of the submitted project as well as its concrete expected results. Each project is also evaluated according to the extent to which it is suitable as a starting point and building block for further projects. Additionally, the extent to which a sustainable networking of diverse users and developers is achieved is considered. The results of the funded projects must be made available to the general public free of charge online and as open source to insure further use and development.

netidee Funding Categories

Within the categories “netidee PROJEKTE” and “netidee STIPENDIEN” projects and theses at Austrian universities that contribute to the promotion of the internet in Austria are funded. Natural persons and legal entities are eligible for funding. The Internet Stiftung has established an Advisory Board for Funding that evaluates the submitted projects professionally and objectively and may nominate for funding. The awarding of funds is determined by the Board of Directors in alignment with the Board of Trustees of the Internet Stiftung.

The category “netidee SCIENCE” supports foundational scientific research projects to promote the internet in Austria as well as the technologies and methods required to this purpose. Funding is provided in cooperation with the FWF, Austria’s central funding organization for basic scientific research. The call for tenders and the determination of projects to be funded are executed by FWF, financing is provided by the Internet Stiftung.

Selected Projects

Projekt Ingeborg / Xamoom

The Ingeborg Project has been presenting artists in public spaces since 2012. For the first time, stickers with QR codes and NFC chips placed at bus stops, stores, banks or cafes made it possible to download the works of Carinthian artists immediately onto smartphones. The project won the Carinthian State Prize for Advertising and Market Communication laying the basis for the founding of the xamoom company. Today, xamoom is an established provider of mobile communication solutions for product marketing, culture and tourism. The app for the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize is just as much a part of xamoom’s range of services as the official tourism app for Lake Wörthersee and virtual museum guides.

xamoom.com

Whatchado

Whatchado is the somewhat different job platform. Video stories provide an insight behind the scenes of the workplace. Whatchado conveys actual everyday working life leading to greater openness in the job market. netidee promoted the development of a “do-it-yourself” app for recording videos for the job platform. Today, the platform has over 7,000 video stories. 400 companies currently rely on Whatchado’s services.

whatchado.com

Grape

Grape is a holistic messaging solution that enables companies to communicate securely and efficiently for internal and external purposes via messenger, chat, video, or voice calls. With the support of netidee, a chat client for the encrypted communication of any number of participants was accomplished. Grape is now a global player in the messenger sector with an international team. In Austria, companies such as Wiener Stadtwerke and Austria Presse Agentur rely on Grape.

grape.io

SoniControl

Audio tracking via ultrasound can be used to spy on the behavior of cell phone users without them noticing. SoniControl is the first firewall that detects ultrasound activity, notifies users and blocks the transfer of information, if necessary – thus protecting privacy. The SoniControl app was developed by the Media Computing research group at the University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten and funded by netidee. The SoniControl Firewall has been installed on cell phones over 50,000 times.

sonicontrol.fhstp.ac.at

DEC 112

DEC112 stands for “Deaf Emergency Call 112.” It is a private initiative that has developed an emergency call app for deaf and hearing-impaired persons with a chat function. Since 2019, the app has been in operation connecting text-based to the control centers of the fire department, police, and rescue in case of emergency. DEC112’s partners include the Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior. The development of basic functions and services of the app was funded by netidee.

dec112.at

Dashdecoder / Bitmovin

DASH stands for ‘Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP’ using existing internet infrastructure to stream multimedia content to end devices such as laptops, smartphones, and TV over mobile and wired networks. An open source software library for DASH was funded by netidee in 2012. DASH was implemented by the Klagenfurt-based company, bitmovin. Today, bitmovin is a multimedia technology company specializing in video encoding with offices in San Francisco, Denver, and Berlin. bitmovin has over 250 corporate customers worldwide, including BBC and New York Times.

bitmovin.com

Watchlist Internet

Watchlist Internet is an independent information platform for internet fraud and online scams in Austria. The platform, which was funded by netidee in 2014, provides information about current cases of internet fraud, advises how to protect oneself from scams and maintains a list of fraudulent online stores. Victims of internet fraud receive concrete instructions and help on how to defend themselves via the platform. The platform is supported by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection, among others.

watchlist-internet.at

CroG2

In 2016, the CroG2 project team, with the support of netidee, released the world’s first open source tools for configuring freely programmable digital circuits, so-called FPGAs, and building secure internet devices. The open source tools of the Symbiotic GmbH conquer the universities: besides MIT in Boston, the University of California in Berkeley, Stanford University, and TU Vienna also use the CroG2 software for academic research. The impact of this project has spread internationally: in Argentina, universities use these open source tools to teach digital design.

symbioticeda.com

Oskar

Oskar is the first hardware keyboard for visually impaired and blind smartphone users. The keyboard can be attached to the back of the smartphone enabling the visually impaired to type 4 times faster than on a common smartphone keyboard. The further development of this keyboard was supported by netidee. Oskar is now well-known in the media – both from television and Expo conferences. Oskar was awarded the “Science Prize” for “Inclusion through Science and Technology” by the Austrian Ministry of Social Affairs.

oskar.ddns.mobi

Pocket Code

With over 1 million downloads, Pocket Code is one of the most widely used netidee-funded projects of the last 15 years. Pocket Code is an intuitive visual web app that allows young people to learn how to create their own apps using the Catrobat visual programming language directly on their smartphones. The app was developed by Graz University of Technology. Over 500 volunteers from 25 countries contributed to Pocket Code. The app is available in 40 languages.

share.catrob.at/pocketcode

Research Projects

Advisory Board for Funding

A separate Advisory Board for Funding, consisting of experts in a variety of areas, nominates projects for the funding of the Internet Stiftung. All members of the Advisory Board work on a voluntary basis and independently of their full-time professional activities.

More about the Advisory Board