Announcing the Flower Next Pilot Program

Flower Next is our umbrella term for all upcoming in-development features. All of our development happens in the open, on GitHub. Everyone can use these upcoming features as they evolve, commit by commit, and reach out on different channels to shape where Flower is going next.

Now, in addition to that, we are launching a more systemic effort to better understand how certain types of users use Flower. Through the Flower Next Pilot Program, we will work with a few organizations, that are representative of different kinds of federated learning users in the community, to better understand how the diverse Flower community does federated learning.

Why are we doing this?

The Flower community, maintainers, and contributors always worked closely together. So far, this has happened in a very ad-hoc manner. Our motto always was, and always will be: let’s make Flower better, together.

Through the Flower Next Pilot Program, we want to structure this process a little more, open it up to users and organizations that might not be on our radar yet, and allocate the time of the core maintainers in a way the has the biggest impact for all Flower users, large and small.

We know that bringing federated learning to production is hard. Through the Flower Next Pilot Program, we want to work with a few diverse organizations, help them to make their project a success, and, in the way of doing so, figure out new ways to make federated learning easier, safer, and more robust for everyone.

We believe the future of AI is federated, and we can shape it, together!

Why should we apply?

The Flower Next Pilot Program presents a unique opportunity for organizations, groups, and individuals, to get hands-on support, to contribute their insights back to the Flower community, and to shape the federated future of AI.

What’s next in Flower? Get early insights. Start to use upcoming Flower features before they’re ready for prime time.

Can Flower do X? Shape the roadmap. Help to improve Flower through your ideas and feedback.

How can I move faster? Work with maintainers. Accelerate your project through personal support from core Flower framework maintainers.

How does it work?

In a nutshell: the Flower Next Pilot Program is a highly personalized effort to fit the needs of each individual project. It works in the following phases:

Apply: You apply by filling out a very short form and telling us a little bit about what you are planning to do. Pro tip: well-written applications have a higher chance of getting team members excited. Individual applications are welcome, but organizational applications are preferred.

Interview: If one of the available team members is excited about your application, we schedule an interview to get to know you. Admissions to the program happen on a rolling basis, and you will get a decision within a few days after your interview.

Execute: In the program, we will meet periodically, demo new Flower capabilities, help you use them, improve them based on your feedback, and repeat. There is no pre-determined schedule, we will work together in a way that works best for all of us.

Launch: After the program ends, we announce the outcome of the program in the way that best suits the particular case. This could be a join press release, a scientific publication, or a technical article about the new capabilities that we developed together.

How can we apply?

Head over to the Flower Next Pilot Program page and apply now by filling out a short Google Form.