Working on Responsible & Sustainable AI? Get ready to apply! 🤖

Our 2026 funding cycle is about to begin... get ready for an extraordinary year with us!

Dear Prototype,

The wait is almost over! This month, the Prototype Fund Switzerland returns with its newest funding round, focusing on a topic we care deeply about: Responsible & Sustainable AI. 

Read on to learn all about our program, and how you (and other innovators like you) can get involved.

• What’s this year's theme about?
• Our New Element: Challenge Areas (& our incredible Challenge Owners!)
• Benefits & How to Apply

What’s this year's theme about?

The question is no longer whether technology will shape society.

The question is how it is built, as it does so.

For the past five years, the Prototype Fund Switzerland has supported early-stage tech for good projects, particularly in open source.

In our upcoming program edition, we want to ask the tough questions on how to enable AI & data that is responsible and sustainable by default, seeking answers one prototype at a time.

To dive deeper into the nature of this year's theme, click here.

Our New Element: Challenge Areas

For the first time in our program's history, we will be selecting applicants to represent one of five Challenge Areas. 

Each Challenge Area reflect a specific aspect of this year’s funding cycle’s overall theme of Responsible & Sustainable AI, and will be guided by one of our phenomenal Challenge Owner organizations.

Which one of our five Challenge Areas might your big idea address?

• AI x Democratic Societies with the Mozilla Foundation
• Agentic AI & Digital Identity: Building Trust & Accountability and Autonomous Systems with t3i Partner Network
• AI for Sufficiency: Monitoring Sufficiency and related Concepts in Media Coverage with One Planet Lab Switzerland, a project of the WWF
• Digital Sovereignty through AI-ready & Trusted Data for AI with Apertus & the Swiss Data Alliance
• Wildcard: Responsible & Sustainable AI, Beyond the Challenge Areas with the Prototype Fund Switzerland

 What's in it for you: 

• 💡 Funding of up to CHF 50k for your innovative ideas to explore this year's theme.
• 🤝 Four months of access to resources & expert input within a supportive space for experimentation to bring your prototype to life.
• 🚈 Access to a strong network across tech, policy, and society
• 🌍 A chance to shape a future of AI that actually works for people and planet - not against it.

How to Apply:

📅 Applications open on the evening of July 28, 2026. 

Sign up for our waiting list today to be the first to know when our Application Portal is ready for you. 

Once you are on the waiting list, take the time to learn about the new round, including selection criteria and timelines, as well as to read our FAQ and follow us on LinkedIn. 

One program, many voices

This year, you can anticipate to hear from a rich variety of voices as we explore this dynamic topic throughout our program cycle. 

From the side of our team, you'll be hearing from our Director & Vision Lead Verena Kontschieder, our Program & Operations Lead Philip Müller, and myself as Storytelling & Community Lead. 

Together, alongside an abundance of perspectives from within and beyond YOU, our treasured community, we hope to create a space which inspires all of us to dream that much bigger - and more boldly. Because our world needs it.

Get ready to start shaping the future of sustainable & responsible AI - and send this to a friend or colleague who's ready to shape it with you!  🤜🏽 🤛🏿

We cannot wait see your applications - speak soon!

Keep prototyping,

Cathlene
Storytelling & Community Lead, Prototype Fund Switzerland

The Prototype Fund is a program by Opendata.ch and supported by the Mercator Foundation Switzerland.