TLEF holders may require software development support in various aspects, including system administration, software development, or software development team management. All of these can be provided within the Incubator support model. The Incubator team is a team within the CTLT/LT Hub that provides development and system administration support for GenAI projects using the LLM Sandbox. This is a more specific version of the general Incubation support provided by the CTLT/LT Hub.
Incubator Services
TLEF holders will assess their needs in consultation with Incubator team consultants and submit those needs along with their proposals. Based on those requests, a pool of programmers and system administrators will be retained and managed by the Incubator team. If they so wish, the TLEF holder/investigator will take the role of the product owner — guiding and overseeing the project’s strategy, design, and vision.
Not all TLEF holders will need all – or any – of the services available from the Incubator team – While creating their proposals, TLEF holders can choose and articulate the services they would like to use. Services include:
- Hiring appropriately skilled IT staff or co-op students.
- Oversight and implementation of software development for the project, guided by the product owner (TLEF holder).
- Submission and shepherding of approvals, including Privacy Impact (PIA) assessments, and data requests, should those be required.
Costs
Costs for retaining these services will be made available in early September 2024.
Examples
The Incubator support can be used a la carte, or as needed.
System administration only: A project owner may wish to use one of the pre-provided applications, but installed specifically for their own use and investigation. No new development would be required, and they would just need system administration help, and potentially a privacy impact assessment if sensitive data were to be stored.
Development team support: A project owner may have a software tool in mind they would like to build, and would like to guide its design and strategy, without delving into the details of hiring, system administration, or developer team management. In that case the TLEF holder could retain the Incubator as a developer team. They will be assigned a team lead, and that person will work with them on hiring, development/release pacing, and applying for any approvals needed.
Minimal support: Some project holders will want to lead their own development team, but may wish to request services such as PIA or data access request shepherding. They may also request system administration support for installation and setup, to get their team of developers started.
Any combination of the above: In the TLEF application, applicants will indicate what services they would like to use to perform the work of their TLEF proposal. During the application process applicants may consult with the Incubator team to assess their needs and plan their budgeting.