NGI Sargasso is a European Commission funded project, part of the Horizon Europe Programme, aiming to create a unique collaborative ecosystem to harvest EU-US or EU-Canada technology breakthroughs that aim to revolutionize the Next Generation Internet technologies, services and standards, and contribute to the evolution of the Internet according to a human-centric approach of the internet commons through five open calls to fund 90 Transatlantic teams to redefine future Internet with a budget of €4,800,000.
In addition, the NGI Sargasso project is part of the umbrella initiative, the Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative, launched by the European Commission in 2016, which supports this vision of building bridges internationally.
In this context, NGI Sargasso is focused on creating a unique collaborative ecosystem and program for promoting the cooperation for NGI technologies across the Atlantic, matching European innovators with their USA or Canadian counterparts to unleash the Internet of the future on topics such as trust, data sovereignty, digital identity, Internet architecture and renovation, decentralized technology, interoperability and standardization, and new internet commons.
The NGI Sargasso open call offers participants a comprehensive program that includes up to €100,000 in equity-free funding for their projects. Additionally, they receive mentoring and coaching from leading business and industry experts, exposure at top technology events across Europe, and access to startup events. Participants also benefit from the NGI Sargasso Brokerage Platform, which facilitates matchmaking with potential Transatlantic partners. The platform is continually open for new registrations, ensuring ongoing opportunities for collaboration and growth.
Who can apply? Our target audience includes a versatile community encompassing startups, SMEs, NGOs, Research centers, Universities and various other stakeholders eager to enhance Next Generation Internet technologies and services.
The first open call has successfully concluded, with its selected eight projects:
- APSIDE – Asset profile standards for interoperable decentralized ecosystems.
- D3ICA – Democratizing decentralized digital identity through cloud agents.
- DDIP – Decentralized digital identity profile.
- EBSI-CAN – EBSI and verifiable credentialing in Canada.
- EvORAN – Evaluation of open-ran network equipment including underlying.
- INTEROP4DID – Interoperable decentralized identity and wallet infrastructure.
- SBAS – A secure underlay for the Internet.
- SNDS – Secure named data sharing.
The second open call is now open for applications, with a deadline of December 18, 2023, at 17:00 CET. Following this, the third open call is set to launch in Spring 2024, timed to coincide with the 4YFN event in Barcelona.
The European Science Foundation leads the coordination of this project, in partnership with Sploro, Mobile World Capital, AUSTRALO, and US Ignite.
Funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement number 101092887.
