About the program Digital Pioneers

The temporary action program Digital Pioneers is meant for innovative grass-root Internet initiatives. This fund gives financial and organisational support to small-scale grass root content communities that realise innovative projects in the public domain on the Internet.

Digital Pioneer projects play an important role in the involvement of citizens in social developments in communities and in the participation in democracy. Since December 2002 more than 100 projects were selected out of 700+ applications. The project started from various perspectives:

• Independent produced content contributes to opinion making, information provision and participation and should exist next to traditional media and service providers (prosumers);
• Lack of business models for civil society projects in public domain of the Internet;
• No funding possibilities for grass-roots internet initiatives (public media policy);
• Private initiatives can contribute to innovation in public domain (open innovation models).

Three kinds of projects are supported:

Content project: content is king. Focus on sharing of information, offering of public services which concentrate on the production and publication of accessible public information (public domain). Maximum financial contribution: € 15.000.

Software development projects: for projects that develop innovative open source software that contribute to new public services. Maximum financial contribution: € 30.000.

Software re-use project: already existing software (generic/open-source) is re-used in a new environment project in order to further foster the development of software. Maximum financial contribution: € 15.000.

On this website you will find the results of some of the selected projects with their own unique scope, community and technical know-how. The basic idea behind each project is described. We hope that the examples and best practices inspire you to re-use the knowledge and experience of these Digital Pioneers. Under Projects you will find an overview of the supported projects. The About section will help you with the background of the Digital Pioneers fund.

Stichting Nederland Kennisland has executed this program with financial support of the Ministry responsible for Media Policy in the Netherlands. For any additional information or comments you may contact us at info@digitalepioniers.nl