Fast Grants Program

The Fast Grants Program is administered by the Biswas Family Foundation, a private philanthropic organization focused on advancing global health through investments in artificial intelligence, computational biology, and data-driven scientific innovation. The program is designed to address a specific funding gap experienced by researchers, particularly in acquiring fast, flexible capital for early-stage or exploratory work. Traditional grant mechanisms often limit expenditures on items such as compute resources, datasets, or experimental AI tools, and this initiative directly responds to those constraints by offering rapid, lightweight funding. The primary purpose of the Fast Grants Program is to catalyze high-ambition pilot projects at the intersection of artificial intelligence and health. It supports both early-career scientists and established researchers transitioning into new, high-risk research domains. Funded projects are expected to explore innovative ideas that could lead to significant breakthroughs in diagnostics, therapeutics, or broader biomedical understanding. The program emphasizes curiosity-driven exploration and aims to de-risk larger future funding proposals by enabling preliminary experimentation. Funding is provided as unrestricted gifts in three tiers: 25,000 dollars, 50,000 dollars, and 100,000 dollars, each supporting a 12-month project period. The smallest tier is specifically designated for undergraduate applicants, who must be sponsored by faculty. Allowable expenses include cloud computing resources, GPU rentals, API credits, dataset acquisition, personnel support such as research assistants, consumables, and dissemination-related travel. Indirect costs are capped at 15 percent. While there is no formal matching requirement, recipients must provide a six-month written progress update and acknowledge the foundation in resulting publications. Open sharing of outputs such as code, models, or datasets is strongly encouraged. Eligibility for the program is broad and inclusive, encompassing researchers at all career stages worldwide, provided they are affiliated with institutions capable of receiving charitable funding from a United States private foundation. Eligible entities include nonprofit universities, academic medical centers, research institutes, and equivalent international organizations verified through equivalency determination or fiscal sponsorship. Individuals and for-profit companies are not eligible to receive funds directly. The application process is intentionally streamlined to reduce administrative burden. Applicants must submit a concise proposal in bullet-point format, limited to approximately 300 words. Required components include a project title, summary, research question, methodology, team qualifications, budget breakdown, expected outputs, and a brief professional biography. There is no interview stage, and funding decisions are based solely on the written submission. The program operates on a biannual cycle, with two funding rounds each year. For the current cycle, applications open on May 15, 2026, and close on June 15, 2026, with decisions announced by July 1, 2026 and funding distributed around August 1, 2026. A second cycle closes on December 15, 2026, with decisions expected in early January 2027 and funding shortly thereafter. Applications submitted after a deadline automatically roll forward to the next cycle. This recurring structure ensures continuous access to funding opportunities for researchers. Evaluation criteria are not formally enumerated but are implicitly based on clarity of the proposed idea, potential impact on AI-driven health innovation, feasibility within the funding scope, and alignment with program priorities such as diagnostics, personalized therapeutics, and scalable research tools. The program particularly values projects with pathways toward global deployment or open science contributions, including regulatory considerations such as CE marking or WHO prequalification where relevant.

Keep responses concise and aligned to AI and health impact emphasize feasibility and clear experimental design demonstrate how funding accelerates a larger idea