Last week in Las Vegas, sixteen 2008 Knight News Challenge winners were announced and a total of $5.5 million was awarded for ideas to innovate digital information delivery.

President and CEO of Knight Foundation Alberto Ibarügen noted in a Wall Street Journal interview (linked to from Mashable, Reportr.net, and Poynter’s Romenesko) that he wants to experiment even more, characterizing a rising trend of mobile funding as a place to “begin.”

Two mobile News Challenge projects, Bev Clark’s Freedom Fone (a news database accessed by mobile devices in Zimbabwe) and Joel Selanikio’s News on Cellphones project (news delivered on less expensive mobile devices), were congratulated on the MobileActive blog. Both organizations are part of the MobileActive community.

Below, Bev and Joel explain their projects at the Editor & Publisher conference last week. (Note: This is casual footage shot with a Flipcam.)

Fellow winner David Cohn, whose Spot Journalism project will “crowdfund” freelance journalists to cover important stories through micropayments, has already generated a line of questioning on entrepreneur Rick Burnes’s blog.

Cohn addresses thoughtful queries about how his project can promote an open marketplace instead of a press release factory in the comments.

This is how David explained the phases of his project last week at Editor & Publisher in Las Vegas:

What questions do you have about the News Challenge and these projects?

(More News Challenge projects will be featured on this blog in coming weeks.)