Knight Foundation is excited to participate in South by Southwest Interactive next March and sponsor the SXSW Accelerator Competition. Last year, we launched a new track for News-Related Technologies and we will continue supporting it this year. In fact, applications for the contest are due by next Friday, Nov. 18, at: sxsw.com/interactive/accelerator.

At Knight, we are committed to seeing journalism to its best possible future. Over the past four years, we have invested more than $100 million in a Media Innovation Initiative, to among other things experiment with new media models for journalism. So far, our funding has helped launch more than 200 community news experiments.

If you are a current grantee or a media innovator who is passionate about using journalism and technology to inform and engage communities, we want to meet you. We are eager to discover interesting projects, meet potential grantees or Knight News Challenge winners and learn about new technologies.

The SXSW Accelerator is an excellent opportunity to showcase your work and compete with some of the leading startups in the field. The event provides a platform for companies to present their new digital products and services to a panel of industry experts, early adopters and representatives from the angel and venture capital community. Past judges have included Tim Draper of DFJ, Chris Hughes of Facebook and Jumo, Paul Graham of Y Combinator, Craig Newmark of Craigslist, Robert Scoble of Rackspace and Scobleizer, Jeff Pulver of 140 Conference, Chris Shipley of Demo and Guidewire, and Tom Conrad of Pandora.

Last year finalists were DocumentCloud, Storify and Opengovernment.org.

We invite you to apply and be part of the technology market’s most impressive journalism innovations. Don’t miss next Friday’s deadline! For more information on the Accelerator, go to sxsw.com/interactive/accelerator.