Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Paul Tarini on News Challenge: Health from Knight Foundation on Vimeo. Related Links 

“40 ideas advance in News Challenge: Health“

“Knight News Challenge on Health opens for entries“

“Knight News Challenge: Health opens with inspiration phase, additional prizes from collaborators” by Raina Kumra and John Bracken

“Announcing key collaborators and details of Knight News Challenge: Health” by John Bracken and Chris Barr

“Join us to brainstorm ideas around News Challenge: Health” and There’s still time to brainstorm around News Challenge: Heath” by Chris Sopher

“Data: Why we care” by Esther Dyson

“Data provides a focus for community action” by Bryan Sivak

“News Challenge: Make APIs not apps, health CEO says” by Lucky Gunasekara

“How data-driven solutions can transform health” by Lexie Komisar

“Robert Wood Johnson Foundation announces new prize for News Challenge: Health” by Paul Tarini

“Data essential to promoting healthy habits” by Nirav R. Shah

“California HealthCare Foundation: The data stops here” by Andy Krackov

“Pizza tracker versus patient tracker” by M. Bridget Duffy

Today we’re launching the $2 million Knight News Challenge: Health with the opening of the inspiration phase and the addition of $200,000 in prizes from two of our collaborators, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the California HealthCare Foundation.

Our inspiration phase is a virtual and real-world brainstorming session around the theme of this challenge: How can we harness data and information for the health of communities? During the next two weeks, we want to collect your ideas surrounding the difficulties, successes and opportunities you have experienced with health information. We’ll open the challenge for entries Sept. 3 and accept submissions through Sept. 17.

In addition to the $2 million we’ve committed to the challenge:

• The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation will award prizes of $50,000, $30,000 and $20,000 for the top three projects that “best combine public health data and health care data to improve the health of communities.” 
• California HealthCare Foundation will award $100,000 to one or more projects focused on helping county and city  officials use health data for policymaking. 
• Other collaborators in the challenge include the Health Data Consortium and the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation’s Health Matters Initiative.

While we’re excited to have the companion prizes, the contribution of these collaborators is about much more than just dollars. They have helped us to shape the challenge, will be with us as we tour the country over the next month and will comment on the ideas we receive. They will also be part of the panel of external advisers who help us select the finalists.

We expect at least some of those proposals to come from the challenge’s inspiration phase. Our goal over the next two and a half weeks is to generate ideas that can be made part of the entries submitted to the challenge.  Inspirations can be small examples or big concepts—and they don’t have to come from the domain of health. Inspirations can come from a variety of experiences.

We encourage everyone to apply as early as possible; the best conversation and feedback on your entry will come in the days leading up to the final deadline.

Raina Kumra, CEO of Juggernaut and a consultant to Knight Foundation, and John Bracken, director of journalism and media innovation at Knight Foundation

California HealthCare Foundation’s Andy Krackov on News Challenge: Health from Knight Foundation on Vimeo.

Below, California HealthCare Foundation Senior Program Officer Andy Krackov talks about how the Knight News Challenge can have a real impact on local officials who often live in a data desert when it comes to health care issues in their own communities. Learn more about CHCF’s $100,000 booster challenge in Krackov’s article on iHealthBeat.