• Article

    Civics conference to encourage democracy by doing

    Published March 18, 2015 by

    Mikva students engage in a discussion on community problem-solving (Photo courtesy Mikva Challenge). Brian Brady leads the Mikva Challenge with the vision of bringing civic empowerment and political participation to all young people, especially low-income youth of color who are often left out of the democratic process. Below he writes about Mikva’s upcoming New Civics Practitioners Conference, which will host educators from Knight communities. Take a moment and think about your first political experience, or the first time you felt like a citizen in this country. Related Link "New Civics Practitioners Conference to help educators support the next generation of civically active youth with $197,000 from Knight Foundation" - press release, 3/18/2015 How about the first time you felt connected to our democracy, our government or our nation’s history? Chances are these instances were not spent quietly and passively reading a textbook, or filling out the bubbles of a multiple choice test with a No. 2 pencil. We must treat the project of democracy and citizenship like the active pastime that it is and consequently ensure that the pedagogical practices that develop young people into citizens follow suit. You do not learn how to drive by avoiding the steering wheel of the car, rather you must practice, experience and practice some more. At Mikva, we say that democracy is a verb; democracy is voting, is lobbying, is speaking, is listening, is engaging, is organizing, is campaigning, is problem-solving. Democracy is in fact comprised of lots of doing.
  • Article

    The Cleveland Orchestra delivers a memorable Mahler’s Sixth

    Published March 17, 2015 by

    By Sebastian Spreng, Visual Artist and Classical Music Writer Now in its ninth year, the Cleveland Orchestra’s “winter residence” in Miami has divided and continues to divide local audiences. Some are loyal fans, whereas its crowd-pleasing programming puts others definitely off. However, the Cleveland’s performance of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony on...
  • Article

    Focusing on civic tech at SXSW

    Published March 17, 2015 by

    Downtown Austin during SXSW 2015. Photo by Flickr user Ed Schipul. The tech industry converged on Austin, Texas, for SXSW Interactive, which began March 13 and ends today. It’s been a time for networking, demos, panels and learning about trends and insights on what’s next in tech. Knight Foundation teams were particularly interested in hearing from people with innovative ideas in the areas of civic tech and elections, especially given that the first News Challenge of 2015 focuses on elections. Two Knight-sponsored panels on civic tech took different approaches to the topic: The first considered how journalism and civic tech can hack the upcoming national election; and the second panel discussed how civic tech can help strengthen communities. Knight Foundation VP of Journalism Jennifer Preston moderated the first panel, titled “How Can Journalism, Civic Tech Hack Politics in 2016?” Panelists included Andrew Rasiej, co-founder of Personal Democracy Media; Emily Ramshaw, editor at The Texas Tribune; Ruby Cramer, political reporter for Buzzfeed; and Seth Flaxman, executive director and co-founder of Democracy Works.
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    Revamped website examines health care challenges veterans face at home

    Published March 17, 2015 by

    Iraq and Afghanistan veterans on Veterans Day 2014. Photo: IAVA on Flickr. Today Knight grantee Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) launched a new version of its The Wait We Carry website. The tool takes government data about veteran disability claims, wait times in U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals, and more,  and presents the information in a way that’s easy to see and use. The first version of the site debuted in 2013. Since then, the VA’s backlog for disability claims has fallen by more than 60 percent, according to IAVA. The new iteration of The Wait We Carry delves even deeper into the veteran experience with details on the health care challenges they face here at home. Support for IAVA is part of Knight’s strategy to support people and institutions that use new ways to ensure Americans receive quality  information that’s vital to how live their lives. In that way, it’s similar to the support  we announced earlier this month to Democracy Works.
  • Article

    Will knowing how the public square works motivate voters to participate in elections?

    Published March 17, 2015 by

    The Founding Fathers in bronze at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.  Jessica Mahone is a graduate research fellow at The Democracy Fund. Below she writes about the Knight News Challenge: Elections, which asks the question: How might we better inform voters and increase civic participation before, during and after elections? The best nonpartisan ideas will share in more than $3 million. Apply at newschallenge.org. Political participation in the U.S. is often reduced to Americans’ engagement in federal campaigns. During campaigns, political observers combine available data and anecdotes to speculate on whether a candidate has the ground, financial, and likely-voter support to win the White House or a given congressional seat. After Election Day, many of the same pundits lament low voter participation rates, as in the 2014 midterms when turnout was at its lowest since WWII. Rarely do these conversations meaningfully consider what voters’ participation in campaigns and at the ballot box say about Americans’ broader civic engagement -- particularly when it comes to the down-ticket elections and ballot issues that aren’t top of mind or of news cycles but actually make up the majority of questions on most ballots.
  • Article

    Call it like you see it with “Place Names the Place”

    Published March 17, 2015 by

    Takashi Horisaki, "Social Dress: Buffalo," cast latex sheets on PVC structure. Detroit artist, teacher and curatorial champion Andrew “Andy T” Thompson continues his streak of outstanding feats of curating with “Place Names the Place,” a group show that “confronts locational identity vis-a-vis personal experience and memory...
  • Article

    SXSW panel explores how civic tech can help strengthen communities

    Published March 17, 2015 by

    Photo by Jessica Bolaños. The SXSW panel “Real Talk on Civic Tech” could be summarized in a quote shared by Andrew Rasiej and attributed to Nick Grossman during the session: “We don’t need more civic apps; we need apps to be more civic.”  The Saturday panel, comprised of Knight Foundation VP of Media Innovation John Bracken; Catherine Bracy, director of community organizing at Code for America; Garlin Gilchrist II, deputy technology director for civic community engagement in Detroit; and Daniel X. O’Neil, executive director of the Smart Chicago Collaborative, highlighted the need to put people at the center of innovation in civic tech.
  • Article

    MIA Music Summit, finding new rhythms in Miami’s tech transformation

    Published March 17, 2015 by

    It is fitting that on the same day Miami Beach will celebrate its 100th anniversary with a massive concert, the MIA Music Summit, which brings together technology, entrepreneurship and music, will take place just a few blocks away. The event, which began in 2014 and is sponsored by Knight Foundation for the second time, is part of efforts to remake Miami into a place of opportunity for innovative startups.  The summit, which convenes at the Colony Theatre on Lincoln Road on March 26, includes panels on topics such as investing in music startups, the state of the digital music industry, music marketing and the use of “big data” for music. There will be also startup showcases, a panel of entrepreneurs discussing how to raise money, and live music performances. Speakers include Liv Buli, from Next Big Sound; Oscar Celma, director of research at Pandora, and Bora Celik, co-founder of the startup Jukely. Participating companies include Qualcomm, Choose Digital  andF# .
  • Article

    Five projects to transform civic spaces in Philly, yield lessons in collaboration

    Published March 16, 2015 by

    Cyclists on Bartram's Mile. Photo: Philly Bike Coalition on Flickr. Kathryn Ott Lovell is executive director of the Fairmount Park Conservancy in Philadelphia, one of 26 communities where Knight Foundation invests. My family recently moved to West Philadelphia, a neighborhood that has undergone a dramatic transformation over the past 10 years—new residential housing, revitalized commercial corridor, an influx of millennials—but which has not lost its convivial spirit, spontaneous atmosphere and eclectic core.  Related Link "Building more successful cities the focus of new $11 million investment to reinvent Philadelphia’s public places" -- Press release, 3/16/2015 Once you land in West Philly, it is almost impossible not to become mesmerized by Clark Park, a 9-acre swath of green space at the edge of the “University City” neighborhood and approximately 3 miles from Philadelphia’s downtown. At any given time, the people using Clark Park, spanning generations and ethnicities, might be engaged in a range of random activities that happen in the park on a daily basis: picnics, drum circles, slacklining, chess, flea markets, soccer, bocce, fire dancing, hula hooping, and “LARPing” (live-action role-playing) with homemade swords and shields.