The Knight News Challenge accelerates media innovation by funding breakthrough ideas in news and information. Winners receive a share of $5 million in funding and support from Knight’s network of influential peers and advisors to help advance their ideas.
Throughout 2012, innovators from all industries and countries are invited to participate in three challenge rounds, each with focused topics on emerging trends.
Round 1 - on networks - is closed, and the winners will be announced June 18.
Round 2 - on data - will be open May 31 - June 21. We’re looking for new ways of collecting, understanding, visualizing and helping the public use the large amounts of information generated each day. Winners will be announced in late September.
Details on Round 3 will available later this year.
Anyone, anywhere can apply for the challenge - whether for-profit start-ups or non-profit ventures. For more information on a variety of topics - from guidelines for for-profits, on intellectual property licensing, open source software and more - visit our FAQ.
Create a content aggregation and collaboration workspace where problem-solvers can post and remix the components of high-impact innovation.
This project builds on the sociality of tools like Storify and Kickstarter and on the successes of cross-discipline partnerships to build a network of problem-solvers—citizens, researchers, and practitioners—tackling pressing issues.
The project relies on several network layers. The data layer relies on existing open-source software to make information tag-able, searchable, and social. The interface layer allows users to share and remix data, media, and processes. The people layer exists online and off so that sustainable innovation can truly be unleashed.
Good ideas, expertise, and data abound. However, institutional practice and different fields can make it challenging for grassroots innovation to reach organizations and vice-versa. This project lower the transactional costs of navigating this divide by focusing on partnerships. This model has already proven successful in areas such as crisis mapping and violence intervention. This project builds on these successes, bringing experimentation and evidence-based rigor to innovations in governance and democratic processes. The project has received seed funding from the Kauffman Foundation to develop the content aspects of the model so that research and case studies are better positioned to be actionable insights.
5. Who is working on it? [100 words]
The project team consists of entrepreneurs and researcher-practitioners working at the intersections of business, technology, and social innovation. They are Adam Hasler, senior editor for the MIT Press journal Innovations: Technology | Governance | Globalization; Mark Stoughton, programmer and online media start-up veteran; Colleen Kaman, M.Sc., media strategist and graduate of CMS-MIT; Dharmishta Rood, M.Sc., user experience specialist and fellow, MIT Center for Civic Media; Jon Payne, M.P.H., Partners in Health manager specializing in the use of technology to coordinate communities of practice; Laura Neuhaus, M.A., organizational change specialist and Harvard graduate.
The project team has identified the pilot users that will help build the workspace. The journal Innovations has built a global network of social entrepreneurs, scientists, and problem-solvers. This project will rely heavily on this community of readers and contributors. In addition, the team is in touch with the Boston-based organizers of innovation competitions and international development practitioners-researchers as additional pilot users. The project requires minimal technical development, which will primarily focus on adapting and harmonizing existing open-source software such as community review and content management software and content aggregation tools.
This project will build a self-sustaining network of problem-solvers and entrepreneurs. It is also exploring licensing and subscription-based funding.
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Adam Hasler submitted this to newschallenge1
