Early Adopter Grant Program

To be eligible for a grant under the program, an applicant must: 

1. be a council within NSW 
2. commit to:
   • signing a funding agreement substantially in the form provided in the application form
   • drafting a statement of work for a product from the AI Solutions Panel within 6 weeks of funding distribution
   • engaging an identified supplier from the AI Solutions Panel using the MICTA/ICTA contracting framework with the grant funding within 12 weeks of funding distribution
3. identify an opportunity where a supplier solution available from the AI Solutions Panel can help to achieve a minimum of one of the following:
   • decrease average timeframes associated with DA workflows
   • improve the DA submission to lodgement success rate
   • time or process efficiencies for pre-lodgement related activities
4. demonstrate that their application is for at least one of the following types of expenditure (eligible project expenditure):
   • funding of delivery with limited implementation
   • funding of implementation at scale
5. provide a letter in support of all elements of the application from the council’s General Manager or Chief Executive Officer.

Grant funding is available for products from the AI Solutions Panel. This will involve trialling and adopting a supplier’s AI solution for a specified use case through the following 2 potential approaches:

• Limited Implementation – work to deliver limited implementation that will refine and validate the solution in the council environment. Councils must invite their chosen AI Solutions Panel supplier to submit a quote for the work associated with the supplier’s AI Solutions Panel solution, with the implementation taking 6-8 weeks.
• Full implementation – if a council deems the supplier’s AI Solutions Panel solution to be trusted and validated, councils may invite their chosen AI Solutions Panel supplier to scale the solution. Scaling will involve the full implementation of the solution in council’s systems, including the required change management.

Applicants may select one or combine the above 2 approaches, for both a limited and full implementation, with the full implementation being optional and contingent on a successful limited implementation.

Grant projects must begin as soon as possible and within 6 weeks of receiving the funding.

The funding agreement will identify the project milestone activities, including preparing a statement of work to be submitted to the department within 6 weeks of receiving the funding, and supplier engagement through the Master ICT Agreement and ICT Agreement (MICTA/ICTA) contracting framework within 12 weeks of receiving the funding.

Grant projects must be completed by 30 June 2025. 

The project must be completed by 30 June 2025.

Examples of eligible project expenditures include: 

• procurement of one or more products from the AI Solutions Panel 
• engagement of third-party professional services for the delivery of the grant project 
• staff salaries directly for the grant project 
• staff training or education on the grant project 
• community consultation costs for the grant project 
• project management costs for the project (no more than 10% of total project value) 

The following types of projects will not be eligible for funding: 

• otherwise-eligible projects that have received funding under another program, unless we are satisfied the application demonstrates that the additional funding will complement and/or expand the scope or outcome of the project to increase the project’s impact 
• projects that received funding through another NSW Government funding program 
• projects that received funding through an Australian Government funding program 
• projects that have been included in a funding application for another NSW Government, Australian Government or state or territory government funding program that is currently under consideration or is being considered for funding by a federal or state government agency through any other means.