Search our Site

Marc Fest, over at Knight Foundation, pinged me about a new digital media partnership that they have launched with MTV.

I’ve been impressed with the way the Knight Foundation is catalyzing innovation and entrepreneurial thinking through their philanthropy.

It’s called the Young Creators Award:

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and MTV announced today the Knight News Challenge “Young Creators Award,” a new digital journalism grant program for young people age 25 and under anywhere in the world. The contest will award up to $500,000 to young creators with compelling ideas for using digitally delivered news and information to enhance physical communities ? improving the lives of people where they live, work and vote. The new award is a component of the Knight News Challenge, an annual competition awarding $5 million for innovative ideas using digital experiments to transform community news.

The Young Creators Award is open to young community-minded innovators worldwide with big ideas such as: anything that informs and inspires community using bits and bytes; new ways to deliver news on emerging platforms, such as cell phone documentaries; new types of operating software for news collectors; and journalism games. All entries require three elements: 1) use of a digital media; 2) delivery of news or information on a shared basis to 3) a geographically defined community. Although there is a category for commercial applications, most entries are “open-source” and must share the software and knowledge created. The number of grants awarded will be based on the size of the ideas; no idea is too large or too small.