#SciFund Challenge… I’m in!

I’m super excited because I just received word that I have been accepted to round 2 of the #SciFund challenge. I posted my pre-proposal last week, and from the looks of it I have a lot to do. I received an email that details what needs to be done this week and over the course of the month and some awesome details about the challenge:

  • 140 other researchers got accepted and we’ll all be working together to refine our proposals to make our funding goals. This is going to be a community experience all around: proposal editing will be a collaborative process, and the funding process is crowd based (hence crowdfunding). I’m very much looking forward to this experience.
  • This week my plan is to get familiar with the crowdfunding process and to develop my project proposal. I’ll be developing this in the open as usual so I’ll welcome all your feedback.
  • Next week and the week after, the plan will be to receive feedback for the proposal from others in the competition and hopefully all you who follow my notebook.
  • I’ll also need to develop a promotion strategy. That’s where the world comes in. I’ll obviously be tapping my family’s network, but I’ll also be asking you to tweet, facebook, +1 my efforts to help me reach my goals. I’ll also to to figure out how to get  the university involved and maybe take out an ad in the local newspaper to reach my goal.
  • At some point I’ll need to make a video proposal. So I’ll be needing some feedback on this. While I have video making chops and tools, this project will be the most important thing I do until I graduate so it will have to represent my best work. Anyone interested in helping me story board my proposal should comment below. Again, all that will be open.
  • Finally, I’ll need to come up with a reward program for contributors. This should be fun since I have a multitude of talents that I love to share with all. As an example if anyone contributes $100 I will design business cards for them for free (the printing cost is on the contributor). For a lower level contribution something like for every person who donates $15-25 I will email them a picture of Trex and myself doing experiments in the lab.
  • Finally between this week and next I will need to complete the first draft of my project proposal. According to the welcome email, “This first draft will include the following elements: title, video, rewards, images, and description of your project. Your project description should include the following: a welcome, a call to action, a detailed description of your plans, and a thank you. Please note that the project description should not go on for too long.” I don’t think I’ll be able to have a video done this week, but a story board should not be out of the question. I will look to film it next week.

That’s all for now. Like I said in the coming days, I’ll be setting up a Google Doc to outline and refine my project description, video storyboard, and reward system. Perhaps I’ll mindmap an outline. And remember all of this will be done in the open along with the project as it progresses once the funding is underway and complete! Crowdfunded open science? Yea, that’s awesome!