Any instructor teaching in a non-profit institution of higher education is eligible to apply for a $5000 grant from NPFI. The applicant must be a full-time or adjunct instructor with the skills, knowledge, and resources needed to carry out the proposed project.
The grant proposal should identify:
- a for-credit software development, software engineering, or special projects course that will be offered during the upcoming academic year,
- a software product that will help a non-profit improve one of its mission-critical activities,
- a non-profit organization that will receive the software product when it is completed, and
- (optionally) a software professional who may act as an observer and technical resource during the course and oversee deployment of the software after the course is completed.
Please submit your proposal as a single PDF file, no longer than 9 single-spaced pages. The proposal should include the following elements:
- A brief overview of the proposed project and goals, your name, your home institution, and the non-profit organization that you intend to work with.
- A brief description of the non-profit’s mission and how the new software will fulfill a mission-critical need.
- A 1-page letter from the non-profit that supports the project and agrees to actively participate in its development.
- Identification of an existing course that will house the project, including its duration (e.g., 1 semester, 2 semesters, summer, etc) the number of academic credits students will receive upon its completion.
- A summary of the proposed course timeline (e.g., a draft syllabus) to ensure that the software will be deliverable at the end of the development period.
- A summary of the programming skills and other preparation that students will bring to the course, and an estimate of the number of students who are likely to enroll.
- A brief CV for the instructor (the applicant) who will be guiding the student team, including his/her most relevant teaching and/or software development experience.
- A statement that the software developed by the project will be free and open source (FOSS) licensed (e.g., using a GNU General Public License) and hosted on GitHub or a comparable code-sharing repository for future reuse by others.
- (optional) Identification of a professional developer who will serve as a resource for the project, including a brief CV and a summary of his/her role in this project.
Completed proposals should be emailed to both:
Allen Tucker: allen@npfi.org
Jennifer Tucker: jenny@npfi.org