FIRST BUILDS · ROUND 1 IS OPEN
Big AI labs don't build for causes that don't pay.
We do, with you.
Tendril is a network of everyday people who help power open-source AI from a browser tab or a phone. The Foundation points that work at the languages and causes the market skips, judged by the people who speak the language and live the problem.
Language is the clearest case. It is not the only one.
The AI everyone uses was not built for everyone. If your language was not in the training data, the model fails it, and no big lab is rushing to fix that, because fixing it does not pay.
The AI your community needs is missing one thing: data judged by the people who live there.
AI fails most of the world for one fixable reason: it lacks their data and was never judged by them. The fix is data judged and corrected by the people who live the problem, and that judged data is the one thing this network makes.
We cannot promise this fixes the world. We can promise the missing piece is something ordinary people can build, and we are starting to build it with the communities who ask.
Judged and corrected by the people who speak the language and live the problem. This is the one thing we own.
The labs and foundations that train open models do the rest, on that judged data. Not us, not yet built.
This is a real machine, not a concept.
One engine, judged by people who live the problem, feeding open models for many causes at once.
Where Tendril ends and open labs begin.
AI fails these communities because it lacks their data and was never judged by them. That judged data is the one thing Tendril makes, not the clinic chatbot, the tutor, or the farming app.
One root. Many tendrils. Language is where we start.
Every front below shares one trait: high public value, low commercial incentive, fixable with human judgment and small-model data, not frontier compute. Open a tendril to see how the help could work, and where Tendril stops.
No money changes hands. You get agency, priority, and permanence.
All true on day one, before any track record exists. That is exactly why applying early is worth it.
You shape what we build first
The earliest partners set the roadmap: which language, which domain, which task the network runs next. Only true while we are early, which makes "no track record" the reason to apply now.
Open data and tools you co-own
Open datasets, eval sets, and tooling for your language or domain, openly licensed, with you credited as co-creator. Co-owned, never "donate your labor."
Priority access to a global network
Worldwide browser and mobile contributors producing judgments in your language and domain, a network you could never staff yourself. No GPU, no ML team, no budget on your side.
Founding collaborator recognition
Named as a founding collaborator if and when work ships for your cause, with your consent. Future-tense and consent-gated, because we will not claim it before it is real.
Underserved languages first. The same engine fits any cause the market skips.
If that is you, apply. The earliest partners shape what we build next.
We tell you exactly how this works. Hiding it would be the scandal.
Tendril Foundation is the public-good arm of the Tendril network. The network's commercial data work funds the open datasets we build for your cause, and that data stays open and co-owned by you.
Builds open datasets, evaluations, and tools for the causes the market skips.
The contributor network. Its data work funds the open work. Same mission, different jobs.
We are choosing the first communities Tendril builds with.
A small team with one working slice can only build for a few communities first. The earliest ones shape what we build, get a direct line to the builders, and named-collaborator recognition if a build ships. Applications open in rounds, and Round 1 is open now.
Apply to build with us
A short application, reviewed in rounds by a small team. No funding forms, no money. Tell us who you serve and what you need built.
You have applied to Round 1.
We are a small team and we review personally, in rounds. We will be in touch. While you are here, download a license-clean sample of the data format and provenance we produce.
tendril.foundation
A public-good initiative building open-source AI data for the languages and causes the market skips. Part of the Tendril network.
Want to contribute as an individual? Join the Tendril network ↗