2021-NIST-PSIAP-AI3-NOFO .pdf

NIST Public Safety Innovation Accelerator Program – Artificial Intelligence for IoT Information (AI3)

Notice of Funding Opportunity 5/27/2021

NOTICE OF FUNDING OPPORTUNITY (NOFO)

Information Prize Competition

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

• Federal Agency Name: National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), United States Department of Commerce (DoC)

● Funding Opportunity Title: NIST Public Safety Innovation Accelerator Program

– Artificial Intelligence for IoT Information Prize Competition

• Announcement Type: Initial

• Funding Opportunity Number: 2021-NIST-AI3-01

• Assistance Listing (CFDA Number): 11.609, Measurement and Engineering Research and Standards

• Dates: Full Applications must be received at Grants.gov no later than 11:59 p.m.

Eastern Time, July 26, 2021. Applications received after this deadline will not be reviewed or considered. Paper applications will not be accepted.

Applicants should be aware, and factor in their application submission planning, that the Grants.gov system closes periodically for routine maintenance.

Applicants should visit Grants.gov for information about any scheduled closures.

NIST expects to complete its review, selection of successful applicants, and award processing by October 2021. NIST expects the earliest start date for awards under this NOFO to be November 2021.

Applicants are strongly urged to read Section IV.2.b., Attachment of Required Documents, with great attention. Applicants should carefully follow the instructions and recommendations regarding attachments and use the Download Submitted Forms and Applications feature on www.Grants.gov to check that all required attachments were contained in their submission. Applications submitted without the required documents will not pass the Initial Administrative Review.

When developing the submission timeline, please keep in mind that: (1) all applicants are required to have current registrations in the electronic System for Award Management (SAM.gov) and Grants.gov; (2) the free annual registration process in SAM.gov generally takes between three and five business days but can take more than three weeks; and (3) applicants will receive e-mail notifications over a period of up to two business days as the application moves https://www.grants.gov/ https://www.grants.gov/ http://www.grants.gov/

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Notice of Funding Opportunity 5/27/2021 through intermediate systems before the applicant learns via a validation or rejection notification whether NIST has received the application. (See Grants.gov for full information on application and notification through Grants.gov). Please note that a federal assistance award cannot be issued if the designated recipient’s registration in SAM.gov is not current at the time of the award.

• Application Submission Address: Applications must be submitted using Grants.gov.

• Funding Opportunity Description: The NIST’s Public Safety Innovation Accelerator Program (PSIAP) is seeking applications from eligible applicants for activities to collaborate with technical experts from NIST, industry/academia, and public safety in developing and implementing the Artificial Intelligence for IoT Information (AI3) Prize Competition. The AI3 Prize Competition aims to utilize artificial intelligence learning techniques to make disparate situational awareness data sources actionable for first responders. The AI3 Prize Competition seeks to attract experts and innovators from industry and academia to focus on this difficult challenge by offering a monetary prize purse and an opportunity to help public safety solve this overarching problem. The AI3 Prize Competition award will include all aspects of prize development, implementation, and post-competition publicity and evaluation of the project impact.

• Anticipated Amounts: In Fiscal Year 2022 (FY22), NIST anticipates funding 1 award for approximately $1,200,000 with a project performance period of up to 2 years.

• Funding Instrument: Cooperative Agreement

• Eligibility: Eligibility for all programs listed in this NOFO is open to U.S. non- Federal entities. Eligible applicants include: Institutions of higher education, non-profit organizations, and for-profit organizations organized in the United States.

NIST will not be accepting proposals from foreign entities. Please note that individuals and unincorporated sole proprietors are not considered “non-Federal entities” and are not eligible to apply under this NOFO. Although Federal entities are not eligible to receive funding under this NOFO, they may participate as unfunded collaborators.

• Cost Sharing Requirements: Non-federal cost share is not required for awards issued pursuant to this NOFO.

• Public Website, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and Webinar: NIST has a public website (www.nist.gov/ctl/pscr/funding-opportunities/grants-and-cooperative-agreements/psiap-artificial-intelligence-iot) that provides information pertaining to this Funding Opportunity. NIST anticipates that a “Frequently Asked http://grants.gov/ http://www.nist.gov/ctl/pscr/funding-opportunities/grants-and-cooperative-agreements/psiap-artificial-intelligence-iot http://www.nist.gov/ctl/pscr/funding-opportunities/grants-and-cooperative-agreements/psiap-artificial-intelligence-iot

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Notice of Funding Opportunity 5/27/2021

Questions” section or other resource materials will be maintained and updated on the website as needed to provide additional guidance and clarifying information that may arise related to this Funding Opportunity. Any amendments to this NOFO will be announced through Grants.gov.

Applicants must submit all questions pertaining to this funding opportunity via e-mail to pscr@nist.gov with ‘AI3’ in the subject line. Questions submitted to NIST may be posted on pscr.gov. Alternatively, applicants may ask questions during the informational public webinar as described in the next paragraph.

NIST will host a webinar to provide general information regarding this NOFO, offer general guidance on preparing applications, and answer questions. Scheduling details about the webinar will be available at www.nist.gov/ctl/pscr/funding-opportunities/grants-and-cooperative-agreements/psiap-artificial-intelligence-iot.

There is no cost to attend the webinar, but participants must register in advance.

Participation in the webinar is not required and will not be considered in the application review and selection process.

General questions about this opportunity including eligibility requirements, the review and selection process, and the general characteristics of a competitive application may be addressed during the webinar or by e-mail to pscr@nist.gov with ‘AI3’ in the subject line.

Table of Contents

I. Program Description II.Federal Award Information

III.Eligibility Information

IV.Application and Submission Information V.Application Review Information

VI.Federal Award Administration Information VII.Federal Awarding Agency Contacts VIII.Other Information

FULL ANNOUNCEMENT TEXT

I. Program Description

The statutory authority for the NIST PSIAP is 15 U.S.C. § 3706 and 47 U.S.C. § 1443. This competition also incorporates NIST’s prize competition authority under the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010, 15 U.S.C. § 3719, as amended (“America COMPETES Act”).

The mission of the NIST Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) Division is to research, develop, and test technologies to improve first responder http://grants.gov/ mailto:pscr@nist.gov http://www.nist.gov/ctl/pscr file:///C:/Users/amk4/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/INetCache/Content.Outlook/OVYBV6VY/www.nist.gov/ctl/pscr/funding-opportunities/grants-and-cooperative-agreements/psiap-artificial-intelligence-iot file:///C:/Users/amk4/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/INetCache/Content.Outlook/OVYBV6VY/www.nist.gov/ctl/pscr/funding-opportunities/grants-and-cooperative-agreements/psiap-artificial-intelligence-iot mailto:pscr@nist.gov

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Notice of Funding Opportunity 5/27/2021 communications and operations. PSCR created PSIAP to stimulate external research and development (R&D) activities addressing critical technology gaps identified by stakeholders and to build a public-safety-focused R&D ecosystem with long-lasting impact.

Currently, first responders rely heavily on relayed voice communications and their own observations to maintain situational awareness during a mission critical event. As network connectivity becomes ubiquitous, the opportunities to use technology to enhance first responder situational awareness are also increasing.

Due to the highly mobile and intense nature of first responder activities, small form factor sensors are an obvious choice for transmitting certain types of situational awareness data. Although there are currently a great number of these types of devices (also referred to as “Internet of Things” or IoT devices) on the market, the current commercial landscape results in the data being proprietary to a specific manufacturer, and viewable primarily via that manufacturer’s intended dashboard.

In an ideal situation, first responders will have the option to select their desired hardware in conjunction with the user interface that best suits their needs in order to stay safe during hazardous situations. Ideally, this would be accomplished without additional manual system integration between the data generating sensors and the data visualization platforms. This manual system integration, although widely used today, utilizes a great deal of resources—including personnel and financial resources—to build an overlay that will allow data transfer between two specific platforms. If changes are made to either platform, the integration must be modified.

This program seeks to implement a prize competition that will develop technology to bridge the incompatibility between sensor hardware outputs and visualization system inputs by creating an artificial intelligence (AI) platform or middleware solution that can identify, categorize, and distribute data from multiple types of IoT devices that could be used for a first responder’s situational awareness.

The PSIAP is, therefore, seeking to enter into a cooperative agreement with an organization possessing expertise in prize competitions to serve as a Prize Administrator (PA). This PA will collaborate with technical experts from NIST, industry/academia, and public safety in developing the Artificial Intelligence for IoT Information (AI3) Prize Competition to address the problem above. The AI3 Prize Competition aims to develop software and hardware components that can be integrated into an end-to-end middleware solution that will ingest, evaluate, and categorize data from multiple IoT devices with different output data formats.

The solution should be capable of recognizing existing sensor data elements and incorporating previously unknown data elements based on contextual analysis.

The aggregated output data will be utilized to improve individual situational

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Notice of Funding Opportunity 5/27/2021 awareness for first responders as a communal resource capable of supporting multiple user interfaces and user experiences. The PSIAP seeks to attract experts and innovators from all areas to focus on this difficult challenge by offering a monetary prize purse.

1. Background Information

Throughout the U.S. today, there are numerous examples of how information analysis is being used to improve our lifestyle. From utilizing networked energy meters to reduce the amount of energy consumption in a city to using artificial intelligence to scan for anomalies in an MRI, the results that can be achieved through the automated analysis of data can be more accurate and faster than those driven solely by human capacity.

However, even as sensors become integrated into devices across many sectors of industry, it is difficult to find devices that meet the diverse situational awareness needs of first responders. A first responder often requires information that spans many traditional IoT market siloes. Information traditionally used by healthcare, industry, and household commercial applications could all be deemed important depending on the first responder’s mission. First responders have neither the budget nor the personnel required to maintain the systems that would be needed to supply this data. Further, even if several systems could be utilized together, accessing and interpreting data from different platforms would be time consuming and potentially overwhelming to an individual who needs to focus their attention on life-saving efforts.

Although data standards are a topic of interest in the IoT landscape and there are several standards development organizations (SDO) working on these efforts, there are currently few benefits to implementation as none of these standards are widely used in commercial industry. Instead, sensor system manufacturers rely on proprietary data formatting, transmitted with secure connectivity to a cloud-based or otherwise secured server for analysis and storage. If the manufacturer feels that third party data accessibility is beneficial, they will make an Application Programming Interface (API) accessible to external developers that wish to interact with the allowed elements of the system’s data. From there, the onus of the integration work is put on the external developer to determine how their platform will interact with the API, and to ensure that the integration is kept up to date. In examining the first responder model, the amount of effort required to consolidate disparate types of data from multiple sensor systems into a single dashboard would be impossible to maintain given their staffing and budget limitations.

Additionally, when responding to large-scale events, multiple public safety agencies must be able to communicate with each other even though their equipment may be manufactured by different companies or be otherwise

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Notice of Funding Opportunity 5/27/2021 incompatible. The ability to have a secondary unit arrive at the scene and be able to immediately integrate their sensor information would greatly increase the efficiency and the safety of the individuals involved.

An example scenario for the AI3 Prize Competition is the hypothetical occurrence of a city level disaster event, such as a building explosion. Fire, law enforcement and EMS officials from City A have arrived to address the fires, direct citizens to safety, and treat the injured. As the disaster unfolds, the city management [incident command] realizes that additional help will be needed and calls for mutual aid from neighboring cities B and C. Cities A, B, and C all have personal area monitoring for their responders, but from differing systems. Additionally, responders from mutual aid cities B and C require environmental information from City A. Utilizing the output from an AI3 component, either responder group would be able to direct their system to the appropriate data source, and the AI3 component would be able to ingest the unknown data, evaluate it based on metadata or other contextual information and categorize the data appropriately so that it could be utilized on a situational awareness platform, and each city could have visibility to the actions of the others without manual sensor integration.

2. Overview

The Overview section is broken up into two parts: “Goals,” which describes the overall goals of the PSIAP NOFO; and “Prize Competition,” which outlines specific requirements for the final prize competition output.

A. Goals

The goal of this PSIAP NOFO is for the award recipient to implement the AI3 Prize Competition and obtain innovative solutions to the question: How can unidentified situational awareness sensor data be identified and classified so that previously unknown data can be integrated and used by public safety in real time?

The PA should implement a competition for contestants to develop a platform that can use current sensor information to learn how to categorize data from unknown sensor platforms.

For the information to be beneficial to a first responder’s contextual awareness, the identification and classification of the data should be specific enough that a situational awareness platform or similar tool used by first responders would be able to interpret and properly display the data once identified with all relevant associated information (e.g. timestamp, location, data source and units of measurement). A first responder would also need to

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Notice of Funding Opportunity 5/27/2021 be able to utilize that information to inform their actions in a mission-critical event.

Ideally, sensor data classification would take place in real-time or near real-time, so that streaming data could be successfully ingested and interpreted without significantly affecting the timeliness of the information when accessed in the field. Rather than utilizing all public safety data housed within a smart city, the prize competition may focus on utilizing historical sensor data, and work towards the goal of real time data identification.

The following criteria must be addressed by the applicant in its design of the prize competition:

• The data to be identified or categorized must be discrete data (e.g. data points). The prize competition will not be addressing crowd sourced data such as social media feeds or text messages.

• The data to be identified or categorized must relate to a first responder’s situational awareness. This can include fire service, law enforcement, emergency medical services, or any combination of the three entities.

• The data to be identified or categorized must be publicly available or must be created or owned by the PA. The prize competition cannot utilize any data scraped from private websites or accessed outside of its terms of use.

First responder-centric situational awareness data could include, but is not limited to:

• biometric sensor data,

• personal protective equipment (PPE) data,

• vehicle status data,

• transportation and city infrastructure data,

• data from public safety dispatch center

In addition, the prize competition may choose to focus on a specific category of data, such as:

• Personal Area Network level data,

• Building level data, or

• City level data

Two of the purposes of this prize competition are to cover a broad range of sensor types and have the data identification, categorization, interpretation, and output be performed in real-time.

B. Prize Competition

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The PA will, in collaboration with PSCR, develop and implement a prize competition that meets the objectives described above. As PSCR expects that the final prize competition will encompass development of an artificial intelligence platform used to identify data, the PA will also be responsible for the procurement or development of training, test and evaluation datasets suitable to develop and evaluate the proposed prize competition submissions.

PSCR expects that the PA will have previous experience in development of dataset(s) similar to the one requested in scope and magnitude, or that the PA will utilize a subcontractor or sub-recipient with the required experience.

The dataset should be generic but representative enough that classification analysis of sensor type, content, and relevant information can be performed on the sensor data. The dataset should include multiple types of sensors from each category of data that the PA proposes. Within each sensor type category, there should be data diversification, so that the dataset depicts different methods of portraying the same type of sensor data (e.g. one outdoor temperature sensor using Fahrenheit, while another may use Celsius—but both are showing the same data). The image below depicts the type of data diversity that must be present in the dataset. This dataset will serve to provide training, test, and evaluation data for the prize competition contestants to base their solutions on, and thus should be appropriately diverse and relevant to the public safety use case. Additionally, if NIST determines that the dataset potentially includes data from human subjects, there must be an appropriate review as indicated in the section on Human Subjects Research (see Section VI.2.g.)., Figure 1: Example Data Diversity Representation in Dataset

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Under this cooperative agreement, PSCR will be involved in the PA’s development and implementation of the AI3 dataset, particularly as it applies to dataset content and relevance to the ultimate prize competition. The PA should specify whether it plans to make the dataset publicly available post-competition.

PSCR expects that the PA will have working knowledge of the public safety use case, and that they will regularly collaborate with subject matter experts from industry, academia, and public safety throughout all phases of the competition. The PA will be responsible for this collaboration, however PSCR may facilitate making connections to key public safety stakeholders who have been actively involved in various efforts related to this topic. Although most of the research shall be undertaken by the PA, PSCR will make engineering resources available for feedback and additional questions related to background research.

The PA, in collaboration with PSCR, will develop competition criteria and performance metrics during the prize design phase. It is PSCR’s intent to rely on the PA’s expertise to partly or completely develop these criteria to ensure a successful outcome from the competition. Competition criteria are the criteria against which applicants and competitors will be evaluated at various stages to ensure that winners’ solutions will meet the objectives of the AI3 Prize. Example competition criteria could include accuracy, performance or scalability. Performance metrics are a subset of the competition criteria and are technical, quantitative measures that will be developed specifically to evaluate participants during test events. PSCR desires that the final evaluation events take place on an online prize competition hosting platform, although alternate suggestions from the PA will be considered. The PA will determine the distribution of the number and amount of prize award(s). The PA is encouraged to develop a prize structure that incentivizes the development and or commercialization of solutions. For a participant to win the prize award(s), PSCR envisions they would need to meet or exceed quantitative performance metric thresholds and receive the highest scores from a judging panel according to the competition criteria. In addition to the awards, PSCR anticipates the PA could pursue supplementary financial/resource support and non-monetary incentives to attract high-quality participants to the competition. Examples of non-monetary incentives could include mentorship, collaboration, and exposure to potential investors.

PSCR requires that costs for prize administration, i.e. total cost to execute the competition excluding the prize awards, do not exceed 70% of the total of this financial assistance award. Monetary awards to competition participants, including any prize awards, may range up to the remainder of the at least 30% of the total of this financial assistance award.

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The PA will be responsible for administering the monetary awards to competition participants. If no competition participant is eligible for the prize award(s) (i.e. no one exceeds the performance metric threshold(s) during the final test and evaluation stage), the unused funds will not be considered reimbursable costs. In the Risk Management Plan, the PA shall explicitly detail any foreseeable risks and their mitigation strategies, including:

• How will any unused funds be allocated to further the outcomes of the current prize competition?

• How will the PA maximize competition participation?

• What other strategies or contingency plans are in place to ensure the applicant's chance of achieving the goals of this NOFO?

The PA will develop a marketing and outreach plan to attract participants and create exposure for the competition.

The PA, in collaboration with PSCR, will develop the competition rules. The PA will publish the rules and will be responsible for any updates to the rules.

The PA will secure, coordinate, and compensate (if applicable) the judging panels for evaluation; the PA may propose using NIST personnel to participate in the judging panels where appropriate. If necessary, PSCR will facilitate invitations for key public safety stakeholders who have been actively involved in various efforts related to this topic to participate as judges.

The PA will determine the competition schedule and serve as project manager of the competition including participants, subject matter experts, facility staff, and judging panels. The PA will provide the necessary qualified personnel, facilities planning, on-site coordination and logistics, supplementary equipment and supplies, services, and related administrative and information technology to support the implementation of the competition stages.

The PA will be responsible for ensuring that all aspects of the competition are conducted in accordance with the prize authority established in the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 (15 U.S.C. §3719).

The PA must develop an intellectual property management strategy that specifically addresses how the PA will protect the data and intellectual property of the competition participants including data and intellectual property associated with the participants’ submissions, such as algorithms, any new data generated by the submission, and/or compilation data. This intellectual property management strategy should also address how data created by judges during the evaluation phase of the competition will be collected, organized and disseminated to the research community. At the end of the competition, the PA will conduct close-out activities to include: a)

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Notice of Funding Opportunity 5/27/2021 developing a strategy to convert the AI3 Prize Competition results into a broader impact on advancing technology to bridge incompatibilities between sensor hardware outputs and visualization system inputs; b) evaluating the competition and process to determine if the objectives were met, and c) completing the data and intellectual property strategy for collecting, organizing, and disseminating the data created during the evaluation phase of the competition.

Qualified applicants must be able to demonstrate a substantial track record of successfully executing prize competitions of this magnitude and complexity, with an understanding of the requirements of the prize competition both from the data and public safety aspects. The applicants must be comfortable working with a diverse cross-section of experts from across academia, industry, and the public sector to create a clear and concise plan that achieves the high reaching goals of this proposed prize competition.

3. PSCR Public Safety Broadband Stakeholder Meeting

The recipient’s Principal Investigator (PI) will be required to participate in the PSCR Public Safety Broadband Stakeholder Meetings (approximately five days) each calendar year during the term of the award to present research and meet with stakeholders from public safety, government, industry, and academia. Other essential project staff are encouraged to attend. Attendance at this event should be reflected in the project schedule and budget.

II. Federal Award Information

1. Funding Instrument The funding instrument used in this program will be a cooperative agreement.

The nature of NIST’s “substantial involvement” will generally include collaboration with the recipient in executing the approved scope of work.

2. Multi-Year Funding Policy When a proposal for a multi-year award is approved, funding will usually be provided for only the first year of the program. If a project is selected for funding, NIST has no obligation to provide any additional funding in connection with that award. Continuation of an award to increase funding or extend the period of performance is at the sole discretion of NIST. Continued funding will be contingent upon satisfactory performance, continued relevance to the mission and priorities of NIST, and the availability of funds.

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3. Funding Availability In FY22, NIST anticipates funding 1 award for approximately $1,200,000 with a project performance period of up to two (2) years.

III. Eligibility Information

1. Eligible Applicants Eligibility for all programs listed in this NOFO is open to U.S. non-Federal entities. Eligible applicants include: Institutions of higher education, non-profit organizations, and for-profit organizations organized in the United States.

NIST will not be accepting proposals from foreign entities. Please note that individuals and unincorporated sole proprietors are not considered “non- Federal entities” and are not eligible to apply under this NOFO. Although Federal entities are not eligible to receive funding under this NOFO, they may participate as unfunded collaborators.

2. Cost Sharing or Matching

Matching funds are not required.

IV. Application and Submission Information

1. Address to Request Application Package The application package is available at Grants.gov under Funding Opportunity Number 2021-NIST-AI3-01.

2. Content and Form of Application Submission

a. Required Forms and Documents. The Application must contain the following:

(1) SF-424, Application for Federal Assistance. The SF-424 must be signed by an authorized representative of the applicant organization.

For SF-424, Item 8.d. Zip/Postal Code field, should reflect the Zip code + 4 (#####-####) format.

For SF-424, Item 12, should list the NOFO number 202X-NIST-XXX-

XX.

SF-424, Item 18, should list the total budget information for the duration of the project.

The list of certifications and assurances referenced in Item 21 of the SF-424 is contained in the Federal Financial Assistance Certifications and Representations (Certs and Reps) as part of the SAM.gov entity registration.

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(2) SF-424 (R&R), Application for Federal Assistance. The SF-424 (R&R) must be signed by an authorized representative of the applicant organization.

For SF-424 (R&R), Items 5, 14, and 19, use the Zip Code + 4 format (##### - ####) when addresses are called for.

For SF-424 (R&R), Item 17, the list of certifications and assurances is contained in the Federal Financial Assistance Certifications and Representations (Certs and Reps) as part of the SAM.gov entity registration.

SF-424 (R&R), Item 18. If the SF-LLL, Disclosure of Lobbying Activities form (item (6) below) is applicable, attach it to field 18.

Instructions for filling in the SF-424 (R&R) can be found on Grants.gov, as well as at the NIST Grants Management Division SF- 424 Research & Related (R&R) Application Package Guidance.

(3) Research & Related Budget (Total Fed + Non-Fed). The budget should reflect anticipated expenses for the full term of the project, considering all potential cost increases, including cost of living adjustments.

The budget should be detailed in these categories:

A. Senior/Key Person;

B. Other Personnel;

C. Equipment Description;

D. Travel;

E. Participant/Trainee Support Costs F. Other Direct Costs;

G. Direct Costs (automatically generated);

H. Indirect Costs;

I. Total Direct and Indirect Costs (automatically generated);

J. Fee (not relevant to this competition);

K. Total Costs and Fee (automatically generated);

L. Budget Narrative and Justification document (item (8) below) should be attached to field L.

A separate detailed R&R Budget must be completed for each budget period during the proposed award (e.g., annual basis). To add additional budget periods (e.g., year 2), click “Add Period” embedded at the end of the form. Information regarding the Research & Related Budget (Total Fed + Non-Fed) is available in the R&R Family Section https://www.nist.gov/oaam/grants-management-division/sf-424-research-related-rr-application-package-guidance https://www.nist.gov/oaam/grants-management-division/sf-424-research-related-rr-application-package-guidance https://www.grants.gov/forms/r-r-family.html

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Notice of Funding Opportunity 5/27/2021 of Grants.gov, as well as at the NIST Grants Management Division SF-424 Research & Related (R&R) Application Package Guidance.

(4) CD-511, Certification Regarding Lobbying. Enter “2021-NIST- AI3-01” in the Award Number field. Enter the title of the application, or an abbreviation of that title, in the Project Name field.

(5) Research and Related Other Project Information. Answer the highlighted questions and use this form to attach the Project Narrative (item (7) below), the Indirect Cost Rate Agreement (item (9) below), the Letters of Commitment, if applicable, (item (11) below), the Data Management Plan (item (12) below), and the Current and Pending Support Form (item (13 below). Instructions for completing the Research and Related Other Project Information form can be found in the Grants.gov R&R Forms Repository by scrolling down to Research And Related Other Project Information and clicking the Instructions link, as well as in the NIST Grants Management Division SF-424 Research & Related (R&R) Application Package Guidance.

Please note that the Project Summary/Abstract is not relevant to this competition. However, Grants.gov requires an attachment to field 7 of the Research and Related Other Project Information form to successfully pass through Grants.gov. Please attach a document to field 7 stating, “A Project Summary/Abstract is not relevant to this competition”.

(6) SF-LLL, Disclosure of Lobbying Activities (if applicable).

(7) Project Narrative. The Project Narrative is a word-processed document of no more than twenty-three (23) pages (double-spaced between lines), which is responsive to the program description and the evaluation criteria.

The Project Narrative should contain the following information:

A. Cover Page. The cover page should include:

i. The name, address, and contact information of the applicant institution, partner organizations, and the principal investigator;

ii. The project title;

iii. Any statements regarding confidentiality; and

iv. A summary of the project in approximately three to five sentences using plain language that would be understood by a general, lay audience.

https://www.nist.gov/oaam/grants-management-division/sf-424-research-related-rr-application-package-guidance https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/forms/r-r-family.html https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/forms/r-r-family.html https://www.nist.gov/oaam/grants-management-division/sf-424-research-related-rr-application-package-guidance https://www.nist.gov/oaam/grants-management-division/sf-424-research-related-rr-application-package-guidance

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Notice of Funding Opportunity

B. Table of Contents.

C. Project Description. This is a detailed description of the proposed prize competition and potential impacts. This section should include a detailed description of the:

i. Approach to developing and implementing the prize competition to meet the goals of this NOFO. This description should include details related to competition design and rules, dataset design and implementation, competition criteria and performance metrics, monetary awards, marketing and outreach, event management, data management, and close-out.

ii. Approach to collaborating with NIST and subject matter experts from both industry/academia and public safety to develop and implement the prize competition to meet the goals of this NOFO.

iii. Expected outcomes and short-term impacts of the prize competition.

iv. Expected long-term impacts beyond the prize competition to include stimulating additional R&D and market investment.

This section will be evaluated in accordance with the Project Description evaluation criteria: (see Section V.1.a. of this NOFO).

D. Prize Competition Dataset Description. This is an initial description of the dataset that must be developed for the eventual prize competition execution. Because this information is critical to the outcomes of the prize competition, it is required that the applicant put considerable thought towards development of this information. This section should include:

i. Approach to developing dataset (in house, external contractor, open data), including previous experience of entity in performing similar dataset design work.

ii. Description of method the applicant will use to ensure that the data is publicly available or will be created or owned by the PA and not data that is scraped from private websites or accessed outside of its terms of use.

iii. Description of proposed size, content, origins and terms of use of proposed data, and relevance to the proposed situational awareness scenario.

iv. A dataset sample demonstrating the types and breadth of the proposed data for use in the prize competition. This sample may be submitted as pages within the application, or submitted as a soft copy via a source code repository (e.g.

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Github or similar). If submission is made via a source repository, all required logins and locations must be provided, and the files must be timestamped prior to the application deadline. If the timestamp provided by the repository at the time of application review displays a date and time past the application deadline, or if the repository cannot be accessed via the login information provided, the application will be reviewed without the data sample.

This section will be evaluated in accordance with the Prize Competition Dataset Description evaluation criteria: (see Section V.1.b. of this NOFO).

E. Project Execution. This is a detailed description of the plan to execute the entire project, including the prize competition.

Applicants should note that all information regarding costs are to be addressed in the Budget Narrative (see Section IV.3.a.(8) of this NOFO). This section should include:

i. A summary of the overall approach to executing the prize competition and how the schedule, deliverables, milestones, and risk management will maximize the applicant's chances of achieving the goals of this NOFO.

ii. A detailed project schedule (Gantt chart of similar) for the entire prize competition.

iii. A deliverable summary table identifying all deliverables, a description of each, and due dates.

iv. A milestone summary table identifying all milestones, a description of each, due dates, and clear, measurable criteria to verify milestone completion.

v. A risk management plan identifying major risks during each phase of the prize competition and mitigation strategies. This plan should also specifically address how the awardee will utilize or allocate any unawarded prize competition prize money.

vi. An intellectual property management strategy that specifically addresses how the PA will protect the data and intellectual property of the competition participants including data and intellectual property associated with the participants’ submissions, such as algorithms, any new data generated by the submission, and/or compilation data. This intellectual property management strategy should also specifically address how data created during the competition by the

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Notice of Funding Opportunity 5/27/2021 judges will be collected, organized and disseminated to the research community.

vii. A plan detailing any IRB submissions that will need to be undertaken if any of the data provided falls within Research Activities Involving Human Subjects (see Section VI.2.g. – “Research Activities Involving Human Subjects, Human Tissue, Data or Recordings Involving Human Subjects Including Software Testing”).

This section will be evaluated in accordance with the Project Execution evaluation criteria: (see Section V.1.c. of this NOFO).

F. Qualifications. This is a detailed description of the applicant's relevant qualifications, experience, and resources for successfully designing and implementing the proposed prize competition. This section should include:

i. Qualifications of the individuals, teams, and organizations that will be executing or supporting the proposed prize competition relative to the program goals.

ii. Demonstrated success executing prize competitions or technology demonstrations similar in scope and magnitude to the proposed project, including any examples of working with a diverse cross-section of experts from across academia, industry, and the public sector to create a clear and concise plan that achieved high-reaching goals.

iii. Access to the necessary staff, equipment, facilities, support, and resources to accomplish the proposed objectives.

This section will be evaluated in accordance with the Qualifications evaluation criteria: (see Section V.1.e. of this NOFO).

(8) Resume(s)/CV(s). Resumes/CVs are required for all key personnel, including the principal investigator. Resumes are limited to two (2) pages per individual. Additional pages per resume/CV will not be considered during the evaluation of the application.

(9) Budget Narrative and Justification. There is no set format for the

Budget Narrative and Justification; however, the written justification should include the necessity and the basis for the cost, as described below. Proposed funding levels must be consistent with the project scope, and only allowable costs should be included in the budget.

Information on cost allowability is available in the Uniform

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Notice of Funding Opportunity 5/27/2021

Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards at 2 C.F.R. Part 200 (http://go.usa.gov/SBYh), which apply to awards in this program.

This section will be evaluated in accordance with the Budget Narrative evaluation criteria. It will also be reviewed to determine if all costs are reasonable, allocable, and allowable under 2 C.F.R. Part 200 Subpart E, Cost Principles.

Information needed for each category is as follows:

A. Senior/Key Person – At a minimum, the budget justification should include the following: name, job title, commitment of effort on the proposed project in terms of average number of hours per week or percentage of time, salary rate, total direct charges on the proposed project, description of the role of the individual on the proposed project and the work to be performed.

Fringe benefits should be identified separately from salaries and wages and based on rates determined by organizational policy. The items included in the fringe benefit rate (e.g., health insurance, parking, etc.) should not be charged under another cost category.

B. Other Personnel - Data is requested at the project role level, and not at the individual level for Other Personnel. The budget justification should include the following: job title, commitment of effort on the proposed project in terms of average number of hours per week or percentage of time, salary rate, total direct charges on the proposed project, description of the role of the position on the proposed project and the work to be performed.

Fringe benefits should be identified separately from salaries and wages and based on rates determined by organizational policy. The items included in the fringe benefit rate (e.g., health insurance, parking, etc.) should not be charged under another cost category.

C. Equipment Description – Equipment is defined as an item of property that has an acquisition cost of $5,000 or more (unless the organization has established lower levels) and an expected service life of more than one year. The budget justification should list each piece of equipment, the cost, and a description of how it will be used and why it is necessary to the successful completion of the proposed project. Please note that any general use equipment (computers, etc.) charged directly to the award should be allocated http://go.usa.gov/SBYh

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Notice of Funding Opportunity 5/27/2021 to the award according to expected usage on the project.

Applicants should provide at least two (2) quotes, if available, for equipment costing $25,000 or more. If two (2) quotes are not available, please provide a statement as to why two (2) quotes are not available. Any items that do not meet the threshold for equipment can be included under the Materials and Supplies line item in Section F, Other Direct Costs.

D. Travel - For all travel costs, required by the recipient to complete the project, including attendance at any relevant conferences, the budget justification for travel should include the following:

destination; names or number of people traveling; dates and/or duration; mode of transportation, lodging and subsistence rates;

and description of how the travel is directly related to the proposed project. For travel that is yet to be determined, please provide best estimates based on prior experience. If a destination is not known, an approximate amount may be used with the assumptions given for the location of the meeting.

E. Participant/Trainee Support Costs – Participant support costs are stipends, subsistence allowances, travel, and registration fees paid to or on behalf of participants or trainees, who are not employees of your organization, for conferences or training projects. The budget justification should indicate the names or number of participants or trainees, a description and calculation of costs per person, a description and date of the event, and a description of why the cost is necessary for the successful completion of the proposed project.

F. Other Direct Costs – For costs that do not easily fit into the other cost categories, please list the cost, and the breakdown of the total costs by quantity or unit of cost. Include the necessity of the cost for the completion of the proposed project. Only allowable costs can be charged to the award.

Each subaward or contractual cost should be treated as a separate item in the Other Direct Costs category. Describe the services to be provided and the necessity of the subaward or contract to the successful performance of the proposed project. Contracts are for obtaining goods and services. Subawardees perform part of the project scope of work. For each subaward, applicants must provide budget detail justifying the cost of the work performed on the project.

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Prize awards to be given to the competition winners are considered Other Direct Costs. Please provide amount of each proposed prize and justification of the amounts being proposed in this section.

G. Direct Costs – (automatically generated)

H. Indirect Costs – Commonly referred to as Facilities & Administrative Costs, Indirect Costs are defined as costs incurred by the applicant organization that cannot otherwise be directly assigned or attributed to a specific project. For more details, see Section IV.2.b.(9) of this NOFO.

I. Total Direct and Indirect Costs - (automatically generated)

J. Fee – (not relevant to this competition)

K. Total Costs and Fee (automatically generated)

(10) Indirect Cost Rate Agreement. If indirect costs are included in the proposed budget, provide a copy of the approved negotiated agreement if this rate was negotiated with a cognizant Federal audit agency. If the rate was not established by a cognizant Federal audit agency provide a statement to this effect. If the successful applicant includes indirect costs in the budget and has not established an indirect cost rate with a cognizant Federal audit agency, the applicant will be required to obtain such a rate in accordance with Section B.06 of the Department of Commerce Financial Assistance Standard Terms and Conditions, dated November 12, 2020.

Alternatively, in accordance with 2 C.F.R. § 200.414(f), applicants that do not have a current negotiated (including provisional) indirect cost rate, except for those non-Federal entities described in appendix VII, paragraph D.1.b. of 2 CFR Part 200, may elect to charge a de minimis rate of 10 percent of modified total direct costs (MTDC).

Applicants proposing a 10 percent de minimis rate pursuant to 2 C.F.R. § 200.414(f) should note this election as part of the budget portion of the application.

(11) Subaward Budget Form. The Research & Related Subaward

Budget Attachment Form is required if sub-recipients and contractors are included in the application budget.

Instructions for completing subaward budget forms are available by visiting the R & R Family section of the Grants.gov Forms Repository https://www.commerce.gov/sites/default/files/2020-11/DOC%20Standard%20Terms%20and%20Conditions%20-%2012%20November%202020%20PDF_0.pdf https://www.commerce.gov/sites/default/files/2020-11/DOC%20Standard%20Terms%20and%20Conditions%20-%2012%20November%202020%20PDF_0.pdf https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=dd7e460e397e25e8c7f2d685f71d953c&mc=true&node=ap2.1.200_1521.vii&rgn=div9 https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=dd7e460e397e25e8c7f2d685f71d953c&mc=true&node=ap2.1.200_1521.vii&rgn=div9 https://www.grants.gov/forms/r-r-family.html

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Notice of Funding Opportunity 5/27/2021 and scrolling down to the R & R Subaward Budget Attachment(s) Form and selecting “Instructions.”

(12) Letters of Commitment. Letters of Commitment must be submitted by all funded and unfunded entities that will have an active role in executing the activities outlined in the Project Narrative. Letters of Commitment must address the level of participation, qualifications of the personnel who will be actively involved, and how successful completion of this project would positively impact their profession or community. Letters of Commitment must be signed by an individual with authority to legally bind the organization to its commitment.

Letters of Commitment will be evaluated in accordance with the Qualifications evaluation criteria (see Section V.1.e.(4) of this…