News Challenge Media Innovation Contest Focused on Data

Posted by on June 04, 2012

Knight Foundation Announces Second Round of News Challenge Media Innovation Contest Focused on Data
Deadline: June 20, 2012

In 2012, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Knight News Challenge, an international media innovation contest, is being offered three times with three different topics. The foundation has announced that the second round of the contest will focus on data. (Winners of the first round, which focused on networks, will be announced June 18, 2012.)

A component of the foundation’s $100 million-plus Media Innovation Initiative, which seeks new ways to meet community information needs in the digital age, the news challenge is designed to identify and support innovative ideas for using digital media to deliver news and information to geographically defined communities. The 2011 contest awarded a total of $4.7 million to support the development of sixteen ideas.

Each of the three 2012 news challenge rounds will be eight to ten weeks long — shorter, more focused contests designed to better mirror the pace of innovation. Entries for the second round will be accepted May 31 through June 20, 2012. For this round, the program seeks ideas intended to help unlock the power of data by collecting, processing, visualizing, or otherwise making it available, understandable, and actionable.

The challenge is open to nonprofits, for-profits, and individuals of any age, anywhere in the world. For-profit initiatives may be awarded funding in the form of grants, program-related investments, or equity investments. Applicants from previous challenges who did not receive funding are welcome to apply again if their project fits the data theme.

Any software developed with grant money must be made open source under a GNU General Public License. If a PRI is made to a for-profit company, only the initial release must be open source, while future versions may be licensed in different ways. An Enterprise Fund equity investment has no open-source requirements.

Visit the Knight News Challenge Web site for complete program guidelines and entry procedures.

http://newschallenge.tumblr.com/