Solid open call

What is Solid?

Solid is an open standard for managing digital identities and storing personal data for re-use across applications on the Web. The goal of Solid is for people and organisations to have more agency over their data. Rather than each application holding its own copy of a person's or organisation's data, Solid stores it in a personal online data store (Pod). This allows people to control how, when, and with whom their data is shared. It’s an approach that shifts the focus from centralised data platforms, where third-party applications often hold the power, back to the individuals and organisations whose data is in question. Solid was developed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s lab at MIT, nurtured by a global community, and is incubated through the W3C Solid Community Group and standardised by the Linked Web Storage Working Group.

We are launching an open call to accelerate the adoption of Solid amongst non-commercial organisations. We aim to select and work with six projects to help them implement Solid in ways that lead to meaningful public goods, and serve as examples of what the technology can help deliver.

Selected projects will receive six months of tailored support designed to help them implement and realise the potential of Solid in their project. This includes dedicated time with Solid-specialist ODI engineers working with your team, access to ODI-hosted Solid sandboxes to pilot projects, and communications support.

Who should apply?

We will support non-commercial projects with in-kind support, helping them to start or develop projects where Solid can have meaningful social good (see our definition below). No prior experience with Solid is needed, and no specific team size is required, as long as the team composition is in keeping with the proposed project.

Eligibility

This call is exclusively aimed at non-commercial projects supporting social good. We are using the following definitions:

• A social good project offers “a novel solution to a social problem that is more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just than existing solutions and for which the value created accrues primarily to society as a whole rather than private individuals.”
• For this open call we are unable to support commercial projects or any aiming to make a profit using Solid. Instead we aim to support organisations such as non-profits, charities, academic institutions, civil society bodies, and any other project that wants to use Solid to support social good without profit.

Diversity

Like the web, Solid has the potential to reshape ways of working. Our selection process is designed to curate a diverse set of six projects from across the globe, varying in size, maturity, scope and sector. We aim to have at least 2 teams outside the current Solid hotspots of Europe and North America. We will adapt our ways of working to accommodate teams in different time zones.

Project assessment

A panel of four judges, comprising three representatives from the Solid Advisory Committee and one representative from the ODI, has been selected, representing a range of expertise. Applications will be judged on technical compatibility, impact on social good, clarity of proposed solution, and likelihood of success, all within the assigned scope. The ODI team will pre-qualify applications for eligibility prior to judging.

If you are unsure about eligibility, please contact [email protected]

Timeline

• 1 September: Applications open
• 15 September: Solid World, with more information about the open call
• 30 September, 17:00 BST: Applications close
• 1-16 October: Judging period
• 19-30 October: Interviews
• 2 November: Work period, ending 30 April 2027

Support package

Infrastructure

Pod hosting: Projects will be given access to Solid Pods on ODI-hosted servers to develop, test, and pilot their apps. These will include an instance of Inrupt’s Enterprise Solid Server (ESS) and the open-source server. These servers are offered as a testbed and cannot be used to store sensitive data.

As projects move from pilots to production, the ODI can provide guidance on options for working with sensitive data.

Strategic support, advocacy and reporting

Strategic Solid support: Upon selection, each team will be offered two strategic workshops to define the role of Solid in their area, how it might be implemented, and how the ODI can best support their work.

• Adoption workshop: This workshop will explore the use-case area, current or intended architecture, and determine how Solid can best be included in the project from an architectural perspective.
• Implementation roadmap: This workshop will dive into the details of building out the intended architecture.

The ODI will also facilitate connections with relevant projects in the Solid ecosystem.

Advocacy: Teams will be supported in articulating their projects’ plans, results, and impacts to further the individual projects' reach and demonstrate the impact of Solid. Teams will be expected to participate in a few communications initiatives aimed at advocating for Solid; these may include blogs, webinars, mentions in ODI communications, or other presentations to be determined on a case-by-case basis in collaboration with the teams.

Reporting: Six months following the end of the support period, teams will be asked to submit a report demonstrating project outcomes. These reports will be used by the ODI team as a basis for a full report on the outcomes of this open call.

Technical support

All projects will receive Strategic and Infrastructural support, regardless of Technical Tier.

Tiering: As projects come in all shapes, sizes, and levels of maturity, we intend to give tailored support to meet projects where they are. Applicants will be asked to select the tier they think best describes their project from the criteria below, noting they may see elements of their projects in several categories. Please align this based on the size of the project and project team, not the organisation housing the team.

Judges reserve the right to re-tier a project.

The tiers are:

Start

• The project targets a specific issue, or a portion of a larger problem.
• New project with nothing yet built; the aim is to create a proof of concept.
• You are an individual or small team keen to learn more about Solid through a project.

Refine

• The project tackles a meaningful but specific problem (something that is relevant to a narrow group, region, or situation).
• Existing project or prototype; aim is to run a pilot phase with Solid.
• You have a capable team that can handle this stage of development, could learn Solid, and grow to the next stages.

Scale

• The project tackles a meaningful and broad issue. This solution could be rolled out across several regions, groups, or implementations.
• Established project: aim is to integrate Solid into production or full-scale rollout.
• You have, or plan to have, a team ready to learn how to use Solid and carry forward a full implementation of an ambitious project.

Direct technical support: Following the workshops, the ODI team will evaluate support requests and allocate time between projects based on need. That time will be split as follows:

• Project specific (PS): Targeted technical work by an ODI expert to be used as part of a specific solution. Ideally, this time will be used to address tough Solid problems that the project team cannot tackle themselves, front-end dev, or upskilling the team to run/maintain a Solid project through peer programming sessions or specialised training.
• Domain specific (DS): Technical work on tools or assets relevant to the project’s specific action area that could be reused by other projects in the same domain. Including domain-specific data models. These assets will be open sourced.
• Open source (OS): Technical work building and improving generic Solid related tools that would be useful to the requesting project. These tools will be open sourced.