A couple weeks ago, ARDC got together for first quarterly meeting of the year. We did a similar meeting back in October specifically for 44net. For this one, we invited a much wider audience.
One of the first items was to introduce our new 2021 Advisory Committees. The Grants Advisory Committee (GAC) is now in its second year, and a couple of members from the first year are remaining:

• Chair: John Hays – K7VE
• Hank Magnuski – KA6M

We’re also excited to welcome:

• Douglas Kingston – KD7DK
• Steve Stroh – N8GNJ
• Renzo Rossi – IW0SAB
• Bob Witte – K0NR

After some time in hibernation, we’ve also revived the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), specifically to address and guide the work being done for 44net infrastructure. Two members of the inaugural GAC have moved on to this committee:

• Chair: Jann Traschewski – DG8NGN
• Tim Požár – KC6GNJ

And, like the GAC, it also has some new members:

• Antonios Chariton – SV2OIY
• Adam Lewis – KC7GDY
• Caleb Pal – KD7KAB
• Pierre Martel – VE2PF

Following introductions, we also took a look back at 2020 with our first ever annual report. By the end of the year, we managed to issue nearly $2.7 million in grants, which included funding for over 120 scholarships.

To learn more about our activities in 2020, read the full report here.

We also got to take a look at what 2021 has in store for us. Of course, that includes more grantmaking – ideally doubling our giving from 2020, which means we have a lot of work to do.
In service of making it easier to figure out what kinds of projects ARDC is looking to fund (and following some feedback that our 2020 goals were a bit confusing), we’ve revised our grantmaking categories and goals for 2021. At a high level, our grants now fall into three categories:

• Support and Growth of Amateur Radio,
• Education, and
• Technical Innovation.

Education is, of course, specific to amateur radio and digital communications. Technical Innovation has four subcategories:

• Amateur Radio Technology & Experimentation,
• Internet Technologies,
• Digital Communications, and
• Communication Science and Technology.

For more information about these categories as well as some of our broader goals, please visit:
Grantmaking Categories & Goals

ARDC is also planning some significant investments in 2021. Specifically, we’re looking to invest in 44net infrastructure and improvements – something that the new TAC has already begun brainstorming. Additionally, we’ll be investing in open source grant management software, which can ideally be used far beyond ARDC. We’ll share more about both of those items as they become available.

All of this work means that we’ll be hiring some folks in the coming weeks and months to support these efforts:

• Grants Manager (Q1)
• Web Designer and Developer (contract) (Q2)
• Additional development support for 44net (TBD as determined by TAC)

Look for more information about these coming soon.

For those of you who are interested in watching the full video, you can see it here. Note that the meeting actually gets started at about 13:52.

If you’d like a copy of the slides from the meeting, they’re available here.

If you know of an eligible organization who would be interested in receiving a grant, please send them our way by pointing them to https://www.ardc.net/apply/ to get started.

Last but not least, so many thanks to everyone who showed up. And double thanks to our Board and 2020 GAC – none of this would be possible without them!