Approved. We know the best projects of the last call!

We launched a call for large projects in mid-March this year and we were eagerly awaiting how the situation regarding COVID-19 would affect it. We have also extended the deadline to give applicants as much time as possible to deal with this new situation.

It paid off and at the end of May we registered as many as 144 applications from various civic associations, non-profit organizations, local governments, schools and individuals from all over Slovakia! We have also managed to double the funds in the fund to 300,000 EUR which will ultimately mean our suppport for even more projects!

Out of the total number of registered (144), 123 projects fulfilled formal correctness. These got into the factual round of evaluation, where the emphasis was not only on the benefit for the target group, but also on the method of the implemetation fo the project, effectiveness or sustainability of the project. Finally, the evaluators suggested to approve the 13 best projects.

All thirteen projects met the highest criteria of the expert commission and the Ministry of Investments, Regional Development and Informatization of the Slovak Republic shared this view. From the three thematic areas, the applicants most often chose the topic of Education in the field of information and communication technologies (as many as 91 projects), where we can say that this area is particularly important in today’s digital world, therefore we have already announced it several times in a row and this topic is also included in the largest number of the most successful projects. Among the successful projects there are also five projects aimed at supporting disadvantaged groups and one at supporting the environment (so-called “green” IT).

„The corona virus brought challenges for the society as a whole, but schooling and education were certainly among the parts of the society which were affected the most. Most of the applicants took up this challenge and came up with ideas for the education sector. I’m really glad about this. We need to change our mentality in Slovakia and instead of working with our hands for car manufacturers, we started selling our creativity, the work of our brains. These projects will be contributing to this, and their existence is the proof that we can do it. I congratulate the winners and invite those who failed today to try it in the next round of the challenge,“ said the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Informatization Mrs. Veronika Remišová.

The following projects received the support from the SK-NIC Fund within the 2020 call for large projects:

The amounts requested are in accordance with the terms of the call, ranging from 10,000 EUR to 30,000 EUR. Thus we will redistribute practically the entire allocated amount from the SK-NIC Fund.

We will be concluding the contracts for the provision of the financial support with the authors of the successful projects individually, in which case the financing will take place after the signing of the contract.

All necessary information about the SK-NIC Fund can be found at our website (Slovak only) and also at the Pontis Foundation website.

We wish a successful start to all projects and we are already looking forward to the next call, which we are expecting in the autumn!