Photo Credit: John R. Rogers

I and several of my Knight colleagues will be at SXSW Interactive in Austin through next week, where we will be involved in more than a dozen events and looking out for experiments helping to move society forward.

At Knight, we believe information is vital to communities – and that new technologies are essential to delivering the information communities need on important issues. Four years ago, when we started coming to SXSW, we were seeking journalism and media innovation entrepreneurs. Today, we are expanding our search to community builders interested in using technology for engagement, in addition to artists and entrepreneurs looking to inform and engage communities.

We’ll be demoing projects Monday and Tuesday at our trade show booth, supporting the accelerator competition and are excited by the Knight-funded projects presenting this year. Here are a few:

Tonight at 5 p.m., Knight Foundation Trustee and MIT’s Media Lab director Joi Ito will participate in a panel and demo of some of the most exciting projects at the Media Lab. Also at 5 p.m., PRX CEO and Knight News Challenge winner Jake Shapiro will give a keynote on the Future of Public Media. (His talk follows yesterday’s announcement about the Knight-funded Public Media Accelerator’s new director.)

Saturday night, we are partnering with Mozilla and MIT’s Media Lab for a media innovation fair at Brush Square Park, showcasing exciting projects. The innovation fair will close with a performance by Filastine.

On Sunday, Knight News Challenge winner Kara Oheler, from Zeega, will participate on a panel on public media as transmedia from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m.

A panel on Civic Media Projects in Latin America will be held at 3:30 p.m. Monday, and will be led by Knight News Challenge reviewer Luisa Ortiz and Knight News Challenge winners Yesica Guerra, from Crónicas de Héroes, and Miguel Paz from Poderopedia.

Monday kicks off the SXSW Accelerator from 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Be there to hear the pitches made by this year’s semi-finalists in the News-Related Technologies category. Learn which projects will move to the final stage of the contest on Tuesday, when winners will be announced at 6 p.m.

Also on Monday, join us to learn about TurboVote, which makes registering to and voting by mail easier, at a 12:30 p.m. panel focused on the Internet, elections and voting.

At 11 a.m. Tuesday, Knight’s Detroit Program Director Rishi Jaitly will be talking about micro-funding and projects like Kiva Detroit, Awesome Foundation and Detroit Soup at Philanthropy for Everyone. Then at 2 p.m., don’t miss the keynote by Jennifer Pahlka, CEO of Code for America.

If you’re also attending the film festival, keep an eye out for screenings by the Borscht Film Festival, one of Knight’s art grantees, which will be showing four of its shorts.  

In addition to the trade show, Knight staff will hold office hours at 3 p.m. today Friday and 1 p.m. Saturday  to answer questions about the Knight News Challenge ahead of the March 17 deadline.  Follow @knightfdn for the location.

We will post updates about all our events via Knight Blog and @knightfdn. Follow us, spread the word, and we look forward to seeing you in Austin!

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By Jose Zamora, journalism program associate at Knight Foundationa