Project Name: Kinstak Sia Public Archive Toolkit - Proof of Concept
Name of the organization or individual submitting the proposal: Kin Technologies, Inc. / Carolyn Eagen[date-range from=2026-01-24 to=2026-03-13 timezone=“America/New_York”]
Describe your project.
We’re building an open-source proof-of-concept toolkit that migrates public institutional records from Microsoft 365 to Sia storage, demonstrating dramatic cost savings and improved public accessibility.
Why This Use Case Matters for Sia:
While Sia has proven effective for backup systems and developer infrastructure, institutional public records represent an untapped market with distinct requirements: permanent retention, public accessibility, regulatory compliance, and cost predictability. Universities manage petabytes of public archives that must be kept indefinitely but are expensive to store and difficult to search. This proof-of-concept validates Sia for the public sector—a market with stable, long-term storage demand and budget authority to adopt solutions that demonstrate clear ROI.
Focused Small Grant Scope: This Small Grant focuses on ONE specific deliverable: a working migration toolkit that moves Florida Atlantic University’s public board meeting archives (approximately 1TB) from Microsoft SharePoint to Sia, with basic search and retrieval functionality. This proves the concept works before expanding to full-scale deployment.
The problem we’re solving:
- FAU’s CIO identified that storing decades of public records (board meetings, institutional archives) on Microsoft 365 costs tens of thousands annually
- Public records are difficult to search across years of SharePoint folders
- Universities need cost-effective permanent storage for public transparency records
Our proof-of-concept will demonstrate:
- Cost reduction: 70-90% savings vs Microsoft 365 storage for 1TB test archive
- Technical feasibility: Microsoft → Sia migration works reliably with real institutional data
- Basic accessibility: Simple search and retrieval of archived public documents
Why start small: We’re proving the core technology works with real university data before building full public portals and multi-TB deployments. This Small Grant validates the concept; a Standard Grant would expand to production scale.
Who benefits from your project?
Provides reusable patterns for enterprise/institutional Sia integrations beyond consumer use cases.
Immediate Beneficiaries (Small Grant Phase):
- Florida Atlantic University: Validates 70-90% storage cost reduction for 1TB of public archives
- Sia Ecosystem: Demonstrates institutional use case with real university data on Sia network
- Other Developers: Open-source toolkit shows how to integrate Microsoft Graph API with Sia storage. Open-source toolkit shows how to integrate Microsoft Graph API with Sia storage. Provides reusable patterns for enterprise/institutional Sia integrations beyond consumer use cases.
Future Beneficiaries (If proof-of-concept succeeds):
- Thousands of universities with expensive Microsoft 365 public records storage
- Citizens and researchers needing access to institutional archives
- Government agencies facing similar public records storage challenges
How does the project serve the Foundation’s mission of user-owned data?
Public institutional records belong to citizens, not Microsoft. When universities pay perpetual rent to store public data in Microsoft’s cloud, citizens depend on vendor access for their transparency rights.
This proof-of-concept demonstrates that:
This validates Sia for public sector institutions with stable, long-term storage needs and budget authority to adopt cost-saving solutions.
- Public records can live on decentralized storage - Sia provides permanent, vendor-independent access to institutional archives
- Cost-effective sovereignty is possible - Universities can escape Microsoft’s pricing without sacrificing functionality
- Transparency through technology - Decentralized storage makes public records genuinely permanent and accessible
By proving this works with 1TB of FAU’s real public records, we establish the foundation for moving large-scale institutional data to user-owned decentralized infrastructure.
Are you a resident of any jurisdiction on that list? No
Will your payment bank account be located in any jurisdiction on that list? No
Grant Specifics
Amount of money requested and justification with a reasonable breakdown of expenses:
Budget justification: This $10K supports focused development by our proven team over 8 weeks, covering Microsoft integration, Sia storage implementation, and real-world testing with FAU’s data—the minimum viable scope to validate institutional adoption.
Total Small Grant Request: $10,000 USD over 8 weeks
Month1: $4,000 - Core Migration Toolkit
- Microsoft Graph API integration for SharePoint access: $2,000
- Authentication with FAU’s Microsoft 365 tenant
- Batch extraction of public board meeting archives
- Sia storage integration and upload pipeline: $1,500
- Sia provider connection and deal automation
- Data integrity verification
- Basic metadata extraction and cataloging: $500
- Document classification (meeting minutes, agendas, reports)
- Date and type tagging
Month 2: $3,500 - Search and Retrieval
- Simple search functionality across archived documents: $2,000
- Full-text search implementation
- Date range filtering
- Retrieval API for document access: $1,000
- RESTful endpoints for document download
- Access logging
- Cost comparison analysis tool: $500
- Microsoft vs Sia TCO calculator for 1TB dataset
Month 3: $2,500 - Testing and Documentation
- Migration of 1TB FAU public board archives to Sia: $1,000
- Production deployment with real university data
- Performance testing and optimization
- Complete documentation and case study: $1,000
- Deployment guide for toolkit
- FAU cost savings analysis
- Video demonstration
- Code cleanup and open-source release: $500
- Repository organization
- README and API documentation
Why this budget is appropriate for a Small Grant:
- Focused on proving ONE thing works: Microsoft → Sia migration for institutional data
- 3 month timeline is achievable for proof-of-concept
- Produces real artifacts: working code, real data on Sia, cost analysis, documentation
- Minimal scope reduces risk while validating approach
Timeline with measurable objectives and goals:
MILESTONE 1 - Month 1: Migration Toolkit Functional
Measurable Objectives:
- Microsoft Graph API successfully connects to FAU’s SharePoint and extracts 100GB test dataset
- Sia storage integration uploads 100GB with 100% data integrity verification
- Basic metadata correctly extracted from FAU board meeting documents
Deliverables for Committee Review:
- Demo video showing 100GB Microsoft → Sia migration
- GitHub repository with working code
- Test report confirming zero data loss
Success Criteria:
- 100GB migrated successfully with cryptographic integrity proof
- Migration completes in reasonable timeframe (<24 hours for 100GB)
- Code documented and runnable by third parties
MILESTONE 2 - Month 2: Search and Analysis Complete
Measurable Objectives:
- Search functionality returns accurate results across 100GB+ dataset in <10 seconds
- Retrieval API successfully serves documents from Sia storage
- Cost calculator shows documented savings vs Microsoft 365 pricing
Deliverables for Committee Review:
- Search demo video with response times
- Working retrieval API with example queries
- Cost comparison spreadsheet (Microsoft vs Sia for 1TB)
Success Criteria:
- Search accuracy: 90%+ relevant results
- Retrieval works reliably for all document types in test set
- Cost analysis shows 70%+ potential savings
MILESTONE 3 - Month 3: FAU Proof-of-Concept Deployed
Measurable Objectives:
- 1TB of FAU’s real public board meeting archives migrated to Sia
- Documented cost savings of 70%+ vs current Microsoft storage costs
- Complete open-source toolkit with documentation
Deliverables for Committee Review:
- 1TB FAU public records live on Sia network
- Case study with actual cost savings (dollar amounts)
- Public GitHub repository with full documentation
- Video tutorial showing toolkit deployment
- FAU IT feedback/testimonial
Success Criteria:
- 1TB migrated with zero data loss
- Cost reduction: minimum 70% vs Microsoft baseline
- Toolkit documented sufficiently for another developer to replicate
- FAU confirms technical success and interest in expansion
Overall Small Grant Success Metrics:
- Technical: 1TB real institutional data on Sia, working search/retrieval
- Economic: Documented 70%+ cost reduction vs Microsoft 365
- Adoption: FAU validates proof-of-concept, expresses interest in larger deployment
- Ecosystem: Open-source toolkit enables other developers to build on this foundation
- Proof of viability: Demonstrates institutional use case worthy of Standard Grant expansion
Potential risks that will affect the outcome of the project:
Technical Risks:
Risk: Microsoft Graph API integration more complex than anticipated
- Impact: Could delay Milestone 1 by 1 month
- Probability: Low
- Mitigation: Well-documented API with extensive examples; team has prior Microsoft integration experience; 3-week buffer in Milestone 1; can reduce test dataset size if needed to meet timeline
Risk: Sia retrieval performance insufficient for document access
- Impact: Search/retrieval functionality degraded
- Probability: Low
- Mitigation: Focus on archival use case (don’t need instant access); implement caching for test/demo; 1TB dataset allows realistic performance testing; can document limitations if discovered
Partnership Risks:
Risk: FAU IT approval process slower than 8 weeks
- Impact: Cannot complete Milestone 3 with real FAU data
- Probability: Low (public data has minimal approval requirements)
- Mitigation: Already have FAU CIO relationship and NSF partnership validation; public board meetings are low-risk data; can use publicly available data if institutional access delayed; toolkit still works even if FAU approval extends beyond grant period
Scope Risks:
Risk: 1TB migration reveals unforeseen challenges requiring more development
- Impact: Could miss Milestone 3 objectives
- Probability: Medium
- Mitigation: Start with smaller test datasets (100GB in Milestone 1); incremental approach allows early problem detection; focused scope means we can troubleshoot specific issues; willing to document challenges rather than hide them
Market Risk:
Risk: Proof-of-concept succeeds but no interest in Standard Grant expansion
- Impact: Limits long-term ecosystem impact
- Probability: Low
- Mitigation: FAU already identified this as real problem; cost savings will be compelling to other institutions; open-source nature means others can adopt regardless; Small Grant still delivers value through toolkit and validation
Development Information
Will all of your project’s code be open-source?
Yes. 100% of Small Grant-funded code will be open-source under MIT license.
Closed-source components we’ll use (but not develop):
- Existing Kinstak authentication system (for admin access only)
- File processing utilities we’ve previously built
These are NOT required for the toolkit to function - other developers can substitute their own components.
Open-source code we’ll develop (100% of grant work):
- Microsoft Graph API integration for SharePoint
- Sia storage provider integration and upload pipeline
- Search and retrieval functionality
- Cost analysis tools
- Complete deployment documentation
Leave a link where code will be accessible for review.
TBD: github.com/Kinstak-MVP/sia-institutional-archive-poc
Repository will be created upon grant approval. All development will be public.
Existing work: Kinstak · GitHub
Do you agree to submit monthly progress reports?
Yes. We’ll submit progress reports at Week 4 (mid-project) and Week 8 (final), plus a brief update if any milestone is at risk.
Each report will include:
- Code commits and features completed
- Milestone progress with specific metrics
- Data migration status (GB/TB on Sia)
- Challenges and solutions
- Next steps
We’ll be transparent about both successes and problems.
Contact Info
Email: [email protected]
Any other preferred contact methods:
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/caeagen
- GitHub: @Kinstak-MVP
- Video calls: Google Meet or Microsoft Teams
Team:
- Carolyn Eagen (Project Lead): FAU partnership, institutional relations
- Matt Krajewski (Lead Systems Engineer/Back End Developer): Microsoft/Sia integration, backend systems (https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-krajewski-a1a6874/)
- Clyde (Klajdo) Qasolli (Front End Developer/Software Engineer): Search/retrieval, testing
University Partner:
- Florida Atlantic University (FAU), Boca Raton, FL
- NSF I-Corps partnership established
- ~1TB public board meeting archives available for pilot
Location: Tampa, FL (4 hours from FAU)