2023/12/30
Summary
Samuele Bolotta and Hlib Solodzhuk have joined us as curriculum specialists for the NeuroAI course. We caught a snag with the curriculum specialist for the Climate Tools course due to the complexity of the German grant.
We have enrolled 10 TAs and sent acceptance letters to 150 students for the January Comp Neuro Course.
Our R&D partnership contract is still pending negotiation, but two others have entered negotiation as well.
We are working on our end of year impact report. It should be ready in the first week of January. For this reason, I won’t spend this update recapping cool yearly metrics.
We have $391k in the bank, $75k in due invoices or payments we will receive next month, an additional $166k in billable (money on grants or contracts we could bill for now), and an additional $1,550,000 in long term accounts receivable (money on grants or contracts for the future). We have $350k in submitted grants, $665k in submitted contract bids, and $2,400,000 in grants we will submit in the next quarter.
Program Updates
Sciencematch
The NeuroAI course building process is going really smoothly! With both previously experienced personnel helping out as well as a much improved curriculum development process and organizational structure, we are making good progress.
Our potential partnership with CAMERA is taking shape as we look to them to explore variations or iterations of the Climate Impact Scholars Program, but for neural imaging work. This may include methods of ‘adopt a lab programs’ or similar pilots.
Scholar Nexus
We are exploring a deeper partnership or at least shared vision with Knowledge Futures Group and Pub Pub. This may involve Pub Pub adopting important elements and learnings from our development of Scholar Nexus prototypes.
Financial Report
Treasury Review
Bank of America Account: $300,786 USD
Lending Club Account: $1,323 USD
Mercury Account: $88,720 USD
Stripe: $0
TOTAL: $390,829 USD
TOTAL NM SPENDABLE: $302,109 USD
Note: I show Mercury account here for a financial picture overview, but it is not considered in our runway and budget calculations. It is budgeted and managed separately.
Fundraising Status
Received Donor Funds and Commitments
We received funds from Deepmind, Meta, Dana Foundation, and Kavli.
In Discussion Donor Funds
Simon’s donation is still under discussion. We are awaiting on the CREST DMAP Supplement ($27k).
We have advanced to phase 2 of the Tools Competition, which is $200k of grant support for advancing our algorithmic matchmaking and classroom tools to encourage peer to peer work.
Most of our in-discussion donor funds are actually federal grants we are working on. We are working on CyberTraining, Innovations in Graduate Education, Improving Undergraduate STEM Education, an IES Grant for collaborative learning, and the Climate Ocean Workforce Grant. We have stopped pursuing the Advances in Informal STEM Education grant because it is too focused on citizen science and I am worried I will not be able to meet the deadline for RITEL.
Fundraising Plans
We are going to test out a fundraising campaign for student scholarships for this program/summer school.
Earned Income
We have invoiced Icanhn and ASCB, and are awaiting payment of $24k.
Financial Projections
Earned Income
We have $170,000 in Research and Development contracts for software and science and $1,000,000 in contracts for education development.
Donations
We have $100k pending from Gatsby.
Major Costs
Our greatest upcoming costs are new hires, but we also expect an invoice for $12k from 2i2c.
Runway
While our predicted cash situation has improved, slightly more expensive than predicted curriculum specialists, our Lyrasis invoice, and potential negatives on the pilot program have brought our runway to March 2025.
Hiring, Team Changes, and People Updates
Next Hires
Fellow for Civic Science Program. Data Scientists and cloud service contractors for NMDA.
Other Notifications
We are hosting a workshop with several of our funders on funding international research collaborations.