September 2022
Progress Updates
Strategic Plan - 2022 -> 2025
The goal is to announce this plan to the internal Neuromatch community following buy in to the budget and strategic plans as a whole during our annual meeting. I think we have significant buy in at this point with the specific implementation of each subcomponent, so this is more agreeing to the announcement of it.
Data Analytics
NMDA is making progress and has formed a board currently composed of Chris Rozell, Dan Goodman, Gunnar Blohm, and Patrick Mineault. We have submitted our first proposal ( https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RUW-H-GvGoibAcN-zZuqlJ61VH_dNsH3-CGUmaFEOVo/edit?usp=sharing ) to Sean Escola’s collaborative team. We are working on an announcement to the Neuromatch internals that has just been approved by this board. The website is similarly prepped for public announcement.
Journal
The journal channel has been fixed on the creation of an open letter as a response to the US Office of Science and Technology Policy which announced that all federally funded research must be open access by 2025. We are creating an open letter that will be signed by people around the world that urges OSTP to adopt policies that we have agreed support not just equitable access to, but equitable participation in research dissemination/publication. The plan is to use this letter to demonstrate our ability to reach a very broad, interested audience and then approach funders with a business plan to begin development of this based on that as we have approached a point where we have a good understanding of stakeholders and are taking a stepwise approach to market access with the collaborative support (both explicit and implicit) from these institutions and individuals.
Conference
NMC 2022
This conference is on track. We have hired a temporary developer to support the Reddit scripting. Panos, from World Wide Neuro, has nearly finished the scripting for DOI assignment and hosting via WWN. The website has been updated to support sharing/associating these elements (Reddit and WWN) with each abstract.
Community Events
We have not started the planning for it, but there is a likelihood that we will run a career event in December aimed at graduate school graduates that shows examples of getting into academia and industry science.
Academy
Existing Courses
I believe that a significant portion of course burden can be handled via the project manager giving better procedure and automation to many of the tasks involved in administering academy.
New Courses
We are trying to support the climate academy through recruitment of additional senior climate and earth sciences faculty in supporting them and their model. Otherwise, Climate Academy is still in building mode.
Financial Report
This is an overview of Neuromatch accounts, upcoming and anticipated major expenses, and a recap of our runway.
Treasury Review
Bank of America Account 1: $12,000 USD (estimated)
Bank of America Account 2: $98,984 USD
Lending Club Account: $308,170 USD
TOTAL: $419,154 USD
According to our records, we have only four TAs that haven’t been paid, but this doesn’t take into account failed wire transfers or other things that could lead to a greater TA burden than we expect. Additionally, we have approximately $10,000 in delayed TA payments we may pay out in the future or next year at TA request. Still, this means we will end the TA payment process with slightly more in our bank account than expected.
Fundraising Status
Received Donor Funds and Commitments
We have received $30,000 from Chen and $50,000 from Simons. We are still waiting on $20,000 from Wellcome Trust. Facebook has provided us the letter to fill out to get $25,000 from them.
We didn’t get the Clearer Thinking Regrant.
In Discussion Donor Funds
We have a meeting with Schmidt Futures on 9/20 to discuss funding.
Fundraising Plans
I am behind on fundraising plans. TA payments, hiring process and the insurance and systems to facilitate it, and NMDA startup have consumed more time than expected.
Financial Projections
Earned Income
Neuromatch conference has currently provided ~$2,000 in income. With a better understanding now of the work that it takes to execute and run Neuromatch Conference, I think NMC is nearly fully sustainable (without growth and without me).
Donations
We have a pending $45,000 for receipt in our accounts.
Major Costs
We have approximately $10,000 in TA payments left.
We will hire a volunteer coordinator at ~$70,000 salary to start at the end of September.
Runway
No change in modeling of the runway.
Hiring, Team Changes, and People Updates
Volunteer Coordinator
We have hired Courtney Dean! She starts on September 28th.
Web Developer
I am stalling on this hire because I want to see a little bit more info on NMDA and the resources it could generate over the next little while. I also want Courtney to come in and assess procedure and process within NMA and NMC with me to better understand predicted workload for projects.
Executive Team Rework for Neuromatch Academy
This is blocked by general agreement on NMA strategy going forward. I proposed an Executive composition to the NMA board, but we have not explicitly discussed it yet.
Volunteer Management System
The final stage of this deployment is this week as I perform testing of the system. It may make more sense to wait on this rollout until Courtney is on board, but I also don’t want to slow it down too much.
Market Trends and World Event Impact on Neuromatch
Economic Downturn
Stock market returns and dips may slow down foundation and donor funding. Sustainability is increasingly important.
Other Notifications
None.