Data Core Seed Funding
Discovering APPLIED INNOVATIVE IMPACTFUL Data Solutions
Seed funding is available to UMass Amherst faculty to accelerate and support new research directions or ideas. You can apply for one of three levels of engagement:
One Week Engagement
- Review the current codebase
- Develop a scope of the end product
- Assess a feasibility
Project Example
EagleCam
Improve a video analysis model for identifying the type of food (rodent, lizard, fish) that an eagle is bringing to its nest for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services.
One Month Engagement
- Prototype code
- Thorough review of code
Project Example
International Phonetic Alphabet Transcription
Fine tune a speech recognition model to use the international phonetic alphabet.
Three Months Engagement
- Serious analysis
- Usable prototype
Project Example
The Nature Conservancy: Animal Image Detection for Wildlife Cameras
Use a computer-vision algorithm to automatically detect whether or not a photograph contains an animal for The Nature Conservancy to use with trail-cam footage.
Seed funding is only available to UMass Amherst faculty
Nonprofit organization looking for ways to work with us? Check out our Data Science for the Common Good (DS4CG) program.
SEED FUNDING APPLICATION
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
APPLY NOW
Apply by sending the following information to cds-info@cs.umass.edu.
- Description of project
- Specific goals for the seed project – draft goals are fine, we can work with you to determine your options
- Future directions, including funding plans, that the seed project will enable
- Max 1 page
- Include links to existing codebase or examples
Applications will be chosen based on the following criteria:
- Potential for positive impact on future funding opportunities
- Potential for positive impact on future success of the project in general
- Clarity and feasibility of project scope given available resources