In April, the BBG determined OTF’s budget for Fiscal Year 2014 to be $12.75 million. As a result, contracting is underway. The Open Technology Fund also concluded accepting concept notes for our fifth round of solicitations in FY 2014. In this most recent round, OTF received 39 concept notes requesting $15 million in support. In FY 2014, OTF has received more than 110 concept notes requesting over $35 million in support. FY 2014 approved proposals are in the contracting process at Radio Free Asia despite serious challenges in receiving OTF grant funds.
Notable accomplishments
- OTF successfully completed our third round and are awaiting BBG funds to begin supporting accepted projects (FY14);
- More than 1 million words have been translated since OTF started the translation hub less than a year ago assisting more than 20 tools in 180 languages (FY13 project);
- StoryMaker, a secure mobile media production app, discovered and remediated a security vulnerability (FY12 and FY13 project);
- A mailing list has been created ensuring developers are now receiving feedback directly from translators about how to better localize their tools (FY14);
- Prior to the release of a new version, Cryptocat was able to update the translations of all 28 languages supported within two weeks (FY12 and FY13 project);
- Mailvelope published a new release and ported the Firefox version to the new OpenPGP.js (FY13 project);
- OTF supported six Vietnamese bloggers visit to the United States for trainings, meetings and public events (FY14 project);
- OTF presented a detailed programmatic overview of the program during the April BBG board meeting;
- Numerous vulnerabilities identified in ChatSecure for iOS have been addressed (FY12 project);
- The Guardian project has made significant progress on creating a secure appstore for Android that allows apps transfers in low and no Internet connectivity environments – and outside the Google Play or Apple App stores. They have also identified a sustainability partner (FY12 Project);
- Transifex implemented numerous feature and GUI improvements partially driven by collated feedback from projects and translators in the OTF Hub (FY13 project);
- The Cryptocat and eQualit.ie teams held a summit for experts to discuss the recently completed draft of the multi-party chat protocol (FY13 project);
- SecondMuse completed a draft of the usability framework for developers and began analyzing data from the Dharamsala field work (FY13 project);
- A security audit of OONI was completed and the team is working on resolving and mitigating the vulnerabilities identified (FY12 and FY12 project);
- OTF spoke with the Azerbajaini’s Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety to learn more about censorship issues occurring within the country;
- Orbot, Crypocat, TextSecure and ChatSecure are now fully translated to Vietnamese (FY13 project).