[Grants] Sports Connection Australia - grant application decision

[Jonathan Woithe]

Dear Jennifer,

Thank you for your grant application for funding to purchase a PTZ camera
for use by Sports Connection Australia[1].  Your application was discussed
at a recent Linux Australia Council.  After much discussion and with
reference to feedback received through the Grants mailing list,
unfortunately the decision was made to decline the application.

One of the Linux Australia Council's tasks is to make sure that grants
provide a clear benefit to the Open Technology community from where its
membership draws and drive advocacy towards more Open methodologies and
standards.  This is especially challenging in 2024 due to the limited funds
available for grants this year.  When evaluating this grant application, a
recurring observation was that the proposed hardware purchase had limited
capacity in furthering open technologies that contribute to the system put
together by Sports Connection Australia.

Council was very supportive of the broader aims of the project: there is a
clear need for a turn-key event streaming solution (including hardware) that
is truly accessible to all organisations regardless of their situation.  A
grant application delivering clearer benefits to the Open Technology
components and their users throughout the community is likely to be more
favourably received.  Council would welcome the opportunity to discuss this
with you to help work towards a future grant application.  Please don't
hesitate to reach out to us if you would like to discuss further.

Jonathan
(on behalf of the Linux Australia Council)

[1] https://lists.linux.org.au/pipermail/grants/2024-July/000185.html