Proof-of-Concept (POC) Program
Once we have created the initial primer for a technology, we also identify the core blockers that are holding the technology readiness level back. These blockers become the opportunities for our community to come together to solve through our POC Program.
By submitting ideas on how to solve these roadblocks, our community engages with our SMEs to explore the development of libraries, standards or governance to remove or reduce the impact and increase the technological readiness of emerging technologies.
As part of this program, we aim to increase collaboration and co-investment between the members of FINOS and with wider emerging technology community with aims to solve the common barriers that everyone will or has faced in adoption or implementation, overall reducing the duplication of effort and inter-compatibility across industry.
To achieve this, we have 8 control gates:
| Gate | Description | Accountability |
|---|---|---|
| Opportunity Outline | Once primer is created, publish the list of barriers where disruption is possible or worth exploring | Zenith Team / Brain Trust |
| Call for Ideas | From opportunities outlined, define the problem statement and create a call-to-arms to source proposed solutions. Enable and encourage the reuse of shelved projects alongside fresh ideas | Zenith Team |
| Community submits ideas based on these opportunities for sponsorship & funding | Community | |
| SME Vetting | Brain trust review submissions and sponsor based on ideas being possible, feasible, worthwhile, legal and not already explored | Brain Trust |
| Value Proposition | The value proposition is created to show the impact of success for any proposed idea. This proposition is then provided to the funding governance team to assist with raising & allocation of funds | Zenith Team |
| Funding Governance | A pool of representatives from FINOS members & partnered organisations vote to approve access to exploration funds or resources. Projects without financial asks can skip this step | Governance Team |
| Project Start | Participants receive their support & create a Zenith repository to start their work. Regular updates are provided to access support drawdowns. If a project becomes unviable, we record progress to date and reclaim any unused support. Recorded projects are stored for future exploration | Project Team / Zenith Team |
| Showcase | Upon project completion, demos and project walkthroughs are recorded to share intelligence with future users. These should cover pain points, ideas on how to improve in the future and solutions for common issues (e.g. installation, configuration, adoption etc.) | Zenith Team / Project Team |
| Release | Project participants share their repositories publicly on the FINOS github, potentially transitioning to the FINOS Labs if required. Project participants are accredited for their efforts in the core discipline primer and the repositories go into standard support models | FINOS Team |