From: Stephen Reed (reed@cyc.com)
Date: Tue May 21 2002 - 18:48:51 MDT
On Tue, 21 May 2002, Ben Goertzel wrote:
> The BAA for Information Awareness repeatedly stressed how they want to fund
> really innovative, out-there stuff -- e.g. completely novel and
> unprecedented ways of representing diverse data.
>
> Are they going to fund anything 1/4 as novel and unprecedented as, say,
> Novamente? Naw. I'd bet the house against it.
Agreed -- if you were the prime contractor submitting the proposal.
I would advise pursuing government funding, whether military, intelligence
community, or completely non-military - we are doing all three plus
commercial. You need not give up any equity, nor intellectual property
rights. We employ one pacifist who chooses not to work on military
projects. We do not perform classified work at the present.
Here's one approach:
Your team works hard on its own time to create a real demo of something
of research interest that no one else can accomplish.
You take this demo to (several) government project managers for
review. They will give useful feedback at a minimum. If you are far
enough along, they will suggest that you team with a trusted contractor so
that your contribution to an existing project, or to a new project is done
as a sub-contractor. This team of which you are a then a part, may (or may
not) have its proposal funded. When you are funded, you listen to what
the sponsors want - even if ultimate requirements are far from what you
originally proposed. You deliver, and you exceed their
expectations. You publish your research accomplishments in one or more
academic papers, thus gaining awareness among advisors to government
sponsors.
Smaller grants can be given to your team outright, in particular for the
purely non-military government sponsors.
This year we are exploring open source collaboration, and using our
government funding to move the core work along. I believe that, in time,
the government will favor funding (selected) open source projects as
spreading the research benefits more widely.
-Steve
--
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Stephen L. Reed phone: 512.342.4036
Cycorp, Suite 100 fax: 512.342.4040
3721 Executive Center Drive email: reed@cyc.com
Austin, TX 78731 web: http://www.cyc.com
download OpenCyc at http://www.opencyc.org
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