🥳Project Incubation Process
This is the official guidance for projects wishing to be fostered under Intersect governance and mentorship. This program does not inherently guarantee project funding.
What is an Incubation Process?
The Incubation Process is how Intersect supports open-source projects in the Cardano ecosystem. It provides a structured path for ideas to grow into sustainable, community-led initiatives with clear governance, technical rigor, and adoption strategies and even for mature projects to find a more permanent residency if considered a critical pillar of the ecosystem.
Projects entering incubation gain guidance, resources, and visibility to ensure they mature into production-ready open-source assets.
What Incubation Does Do for Your Project
Supports Growth: Provides structure, mentorship, and resources to help projects mature into sustainable open-source initiatives.
Ensures Alignment: Reviews projects for fit with Intersect’s mission, governance standards, and open-source best practices.
Guides Technical Development: Facilitates peer review, roadmap validation, and technical mentoring to strengthen project quality.
Builds Community: Assists with contributor engagement, onboarding, and documentation improvements.
Enables Sustainability: Helps define funding strategies, governance models, and long-term adoption pathways.
Provides Visibility: Recognizes incubated projects within the Cardano ecosystem, opening doors to partnerships and adoption.
What Incubation Does Not Do for Your Project
Write Your Code for You: Incubation supports projects, but the project team is responsible for building and maintaining its codebase.
Guarantee Funding: While incubation can help design funding strategies, acceptance does not automatically include grants or financial sponsorship.
Replace Project Leadership: Project teams remain accountable for vision, delivery, and decision-making.
Cover Third-Party Dependencies: External applications, DApps, or smart contracts not maintained by Intersect are out of scope.
Bypass Criteria: Projects that don’t meet acceptance standards or lack clear maturity cannot skip requirements by entering incubation.
What Intersect Offers:
When accepted into incubation, projects receive:
Mentorship & Governance: Guidance from the Open Source Committee (OSC), Technical Steering Committee (TSC), and relevant working groups.
Technical Validation: Peer review and feedback from Cardano’s core technical community.
Community Growth: Support with contributor engagement, documentation, and onboarding.
Sustainability Planning: Assistance with funding strategies and long-term project governance.
Visibility & Adoption: Recognition within the Cardano ecosystem and support in building partnerships.
How to Apply
Review the Project Incubation Lifecycle Framework.
Ensure your project meets the Acceptance Criteria.
Complete a self-assessment of project maturity (vision, technical foundation, roadmap, and community plan).
Submit your project through the official Incubation Application Form.
Review Process
Initial Screening: OSC Chair/Secretary confirm completeness of submission.
If a submission is incomplete or not aligned with criteria, the project may receive a summary decline. Applicants are encouraged to reapply once missing information is provided, or after six months if the project has since met the requirements.
Open Source Committee (OSC): Initial review of the project to ensure alignment with Intersect’s open-source mission and ethos, and to confirm adherence to clear best practices.
Technical Steering Committee (TSC): Peer review of technical, governance, and community aspects.
Go / No-Go Decision:
Go → Project enters incubation.
No-Go → Feedback provided with guidance for resubmission.
A proposal receiving recommendations from both committees will proceed directly into incubation.
If only one committee provides a recommendation, the project will undergo an inter-committee review to determine its eligibility for incubation.
Projects that are rejected will not enter incubation, but will receive a rationale for the decision and may reapply after six months
Once a project is accepted, there are one of two paths to follow with the project Intellectual Property: (See Ownership and Governance for details)
Foster IP under Intersect
Retain IP but Align with Intersect Processes
During Incubation: Project progress is tracked against roadmap, documentation, and contributor engagement milestones.
Outputs of successful incubation include:
A validated MVP with core features
Community and contributor metrics
Refined documentation & onboarding
A clear technical roadmap
Governance and compliance alignment
Ownership & Governance Options in Incubation
When a project is accepted into incubation, the submitting team remains the core development team responsible for driving progress. At this stage, the team can choose how to structure intellectual property (IP) and repository governance. There are two primary paths:
1. Foster IP under Intersect
The project’s IP (e.g., repository, license rights, trademarks) is transferred to Intersect.
The submitting team continues as the core maintainers, but Intersect becomes the neutral steward of the codebase.
This approach ensures that no single company controls the project and that the ecosystem can safely adopt it.
Example: The Linux kernel is hosted by the Linux Kernel Organization — Linus Torvalds and maintainers drive development, but the Linux Foundation holds the trademarks and provides neutral governance. Similarly, Hyperledger Fabric was contributed by IBM to the Linux Foundation. IBM engineers still contribute heavily, but governance and IP are neutral, making adoption safer for the whole industry.
2. Retain IP but Align with Intersect Processes
The project team keeps ownership of the IP (repos, licensing, trademarks).
To be incubated, the team commits to following Intersect’s governance, contribution, and repository management standards.
Intersect co-manages the repository (e.g., applying open governance rules, contributor ladders, CI/CD policies), but IP remains with the original team or organization.
Example: Many CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation) projects start this way. A company or community retains ownership of an open-source project but agrees to CNCF’s open governance processes (e.g., Prometheus and Envoy were initially owned by their founding companies before moving deeper into CNCF governance). Over time, some of these projects later transfer IP once they are ready for broader neutrality.
Why This Matters
Foster IP under Intersect is best when a project seeks ecosystem-wide adoption and neutrality from day one.
Retain IP is useful when a team wants to stay independent while still benefiting from Intersect’s governance structure, reviews, and community visibility.
Both paths ensure the submitting team stays in control of day-to-day development, while providing flexibility on how governance and IP stewardship evolve as the project matures.
Conclusion
The Incubation Program is Intersect’s commitment to empowering open-source innovation in the Cardano ecosystem. By providing structure, mentorship, and governance, incubation helps transform promising ideas into sustainable projects that strengthen Cardano’s foundation and broaden its impact.
Whether your project is an early prototype or a growing open-source initiative, incubation ensures it has the guidance, community support, and best practices needed to thrive.
📌 Take the next step — bring your vision into the Cardano ecosystem. 👉 Apply to the Incubation Program
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