Introducing the Zama Grant Program and Launching the Zama Bounty Program Season 5

Last season, we were thrilled to support the developer community with €45,000 in awards through the Zama Bounty Program. It was a season filled with innovation as the Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) community tackled exciting challenges, advancing both FHE applications and enhancing Zama's libraries.

We received many submissions to the challenges we presented, and here are some direct links to the best solutions:

- Create a string library that works on encrypted data using TFHE-rs

• 🥇 1st place: A submission by JoseSK999.
• 🥈 2nd place: A submission by Tomtau.
• 🥉 3rd place: A submission by  M-Bln.

- Create a privacy preserving version of Shazam using Concrete and/or Concrete ML

• 🥇 1st place: A submission by Iamayushanand.
• 🥈 2nd place: A submission by GoktuEk.

- Create an on-chain game that keeps private states hidden using Zama's fhEVM programmable privacy

• 🥇 1st place: A submission by Kroist.
• 🥈 2nd place: A submission by Aditya-Chaurasia11.
• 🥉 3rd place: A submission by  Joeyiny.

Launching the Zama Bounty Program Season 5

We are introducing three new bounties, each targeting a different Zama Library.

• Create an implementation of an SQL encrypted query on a clear database using TFHE-rs.
• Create an encrypted DNA ancestry using Concrete ML.
• Create and on-chain DRM using Zama's fhEVM.

Introducing the Zama Grant Program

When we started exploring Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) back in 2020, it was a niche and complex field. It seemed slow, impractical, and was mostly understood by a select few with PhDs in cryptography, with its discussions confined to academic papers. Fast forward to today, FHE is rapidly evolving, becoming more practical and accessible, reaching beyond the academic realm.

At our core, we believe in a future where people don't have to worry about their privacy online, which is why we're dedicated to making the internet encrypted end-to-end. Our approach? Providing developers with top-notch, open-source libraries that allow for the seamless integration of FHE into applications, eliminating the need for deep cryptographic knowledge.

Ultimately, it's developers who will be implementing these privacy features and safeguarding data for millions of users.

Over the past few months, we've seen an increasing engagement within the community with FHE and Zama’s libraries, sparking many incredible projects.

To support our mission of enabling developers to protect user privacy, we're launching the Zama Grant Program. This initiative aims to support projects, teams and companies building FHE applications that tackle real-world privacy challenges using Zama's suite of libraries.

Here are some examples of projects that already received grant funding:

• Concrete Biopython: An FHE implementation of the biopython library.
• VaultChem: Predict properties of confidential molecules using ML and FHE.
• GacsBiometrics: an FHE-based iris identification application.

Are you building with FHE and Zama's libraries? Apply for a grant here.

Additional links

• The official Bounty Program and Grant Program Github repository (Don't forget to star it ⭐️).
• Our community channels, for support and more.
• Zama on Twitter.