Jano Costard

Head of Challenges @SPRIND - Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation. Leading Challenges in AI, drug development, biotech, energy, computing & more.

[Robert Jakob @robertjakob]

Researchers across 20+ institutions incl. ETH, Stanford, Harvard, KAIST, UNSW have spent months building TimeNet.

the goal: make it easier to train and benchmark temporal foundation models that understand how the world changes over time.

it's open source, and today we're kicking off a global hackathon. Come join us: https://t.co/o219dZbR3y

(and earn $50k in compute and cloud credits)

[Jano Costard @jncstrd]

@MarcoCantamessa @FT You are right, for bridging the valley of death, the typical mission for agencies like ours, there needs to be demand to bridge to. This wasn't his point, though. We are actively working on that, coordinating potential customers around our funding programs https://t.co/tnNnAXdvIA

[Jano Costard @jncstrd]

A Google exec told the @FT it's fine for Europe to just consume AI, not lead in its development. I beg to differ. AI will a be leading source of technological change and with it of economic growth. This must not be outsourced. My full response was published in the @FT today. 1/

[Rafael Laguna de la Vera @rafbuff]

@PGelsinger Such an interesting space, has always been. Thanks for sharing @PGelsinger! We @SPRIND have the call open for the AI native chip design challenge: https://t.co/CtUEyGbRWT

[Jano Costard @jncstrd]

@Simon__Grimm Absolutely, in Germany and Europe so much discussion centers around "coordination", essentially doing everything just once. As a result, we put all our eggs in one basket and then let it drown because why show effort if you already created a monopoly.

[Jano Costard @jncstrd]

One of the first projects initiated at Germany's Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation @SPRIND. It's quite a sight! More importantly, it brings cheap & clean power!

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

World record: as of today, the tallest wind turbine—standing 365 meters tall—is located in Schipkau, Germany. In Germany, only the Berlin TV Tower, at 368 meters, is taller.

[Ilir Aliu @IlirAliu_]

Everyone loves shitting on European tech. Fine.
Last week in Berlin, I watched 13 teams pitch.
13 teams ACTUALLY TRYING instead of whining.

📌 Save this post if you want to know who is trying to build the next generation of European AI & Robotics.

(Live Pitch Videos) 🧵 👇

[Jano Costard @jncstrd]

@robertjakob @SPRIND @BotSchweizDE @aionic_labs We will build 💪

[Jano Costard @jncstrd]

@patrickc There is some hope. With @SPRIND we fund within 14 days, similar to fast grants, with very little bureaucracy and always European-wide. Draghi called it the role model for Europe, Sweden and the Netherlands followed our approach. https://t.co/LepTe31DB0

[Jano Costard @jncstrd]

@DominiqueCAPaul Spot on. Thanks for contributing, in various ways, not the least by sharing your story of making progress.

[Jano Costard @jncstrd]

Müssen im KI-Rennen aufholen & eigene Stärken entwickeln. Dazu haben @MonikaSchnitzer et al Stellung bezogen. Fast erstaunlich: Deutschland ist Vorbild mit @SPRIND Challenges die Talente mit Geld, Entscheidungen in 14 Tagen & wenig Bürokratie überzeugen. https://t.co/h74Oz8wIM7

[Jano Costard @jncstrd]

Today in @nytimes: How Germany's @SPRIND "offers a breath of optimism" and how we work with Sweden and with currently created Dutch and French ARPAs to make sure 🇪🇺 builds breakthrough tech. https://t.co/LepTe31DB0?

[Andreas Köpf @neurosp1ke]

SPRIN-D robotics challenge
Deadline: Oct 22, 2026
Who? EU/EFTA/UK
Funding 1st stage: €1M platforms / HW €2.4M; up to €7.2M total per team in stage 4 both tracks
https://t.co/Kq4JM45YEo

[SPRIND, Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation @SPRIND]

Bis zu 12 Teams können an dieser SPRIND Challenge teilnehmen - und erhalten in den nächsten 24 Monaten bis zu 1,5 Mio. Euro. Die Bewerbungsfrist läuft bis zum 16.10. Um diese SPRIND Challenge vorzustellen, bieten wir am 20.08. ein Webinar an https://t.co/L27tgYbaPO

[Andreas Köpf @neurosp1ke]

The last 6 months I’ve been working on robotics experiments solo.

I’m going all in on it now.

I am forming a team to build a Semi-Humanoid 🦾🧠: 7-DoF arms, dexterous hands, mobile base, pan/tilt stereo head and of course the teleop data pipeline and policies to run it. Target for working prototype EOY. World class German engineering both HW & SW/AI.

I’m now for the first phase looking for 2–3 AI & data driven robo pilled guru-level 🐐 people to build it with me from day zero:

- grippers & UMI counterparts
- arms, head, base
- recording / (post-)training / inference
- mapping & navigation
- data collection, retargeting, annotations (students welcome)

If you are an EE/MechE with strong robotics background located near Münster or AIE anywhere within 🇩🇪 who wants to build general purpose robots for every home and factory - team up with me on this -> DM 🤗

[Continuous Intelligence @Continu_Intel]

Continuous Intelligence has been awarded up to €3 million through SPRIND’s Next Frontier AI Challenge.

We are one of ten teams selected from 500+ applications to enter Stage 1.

Read more
https://t.co/zExphbAUxL

We’re hiring in London
https://t.co/hV1psdJwkd

[Jano Costard @jncstrd]

We just started our @SPRIND Continuous Hormone Monitoring Challenge with 8 incredible teams. @Forbes with more insights https://t.co/fGrKLs4fmk

[Jano Costard @jncstrd]

If we want to change the world, we need to build. Most funding agencies unfortunately are not set up to catalyze building breakthrough innovation. We work on changing that at @SPRIND

[Foresight Institute @foresightinst]

From vision to real impact. @jncstrd and @joemeyerowitz on turning ambitious research into results: https://t.co/H4tbuW6L00

[Mustafa Shukor @MustafaShukor1]

We’re taking a different bet from most frontier robotics labs: scaling latent-space world models for physical AI. 🧵 1/n