At the Eyeo Festival in Minneapolis today, Knight Foundation Director of Journalism Shazna Nessa announced that the next Knight News Challenge will explore how data can offer a deeper understanding of the world. We’ve selected that theme to address the need for individuals to be able to navigate an increasingly complex and data-rich environment.

For this, our 14th Knight News Challenge, we will focus on surfacing projects that build an understanding of the role of data in people’s lives. This is our second challenge specifically focused on data. Since the first one in 2012 we have seen data become even more entwined in our everyday lives, and we want to accelerate exploration of this area with data projects that create a more informed citizenry and demystify the collection and use of data.

We are still in the planning stages, but the scope of the challenge will likely call for projects that:

• develop new models for creating, sharing and using data;
• use data for better journalism, storytelling and visualization;
• promote security, transparency and privacy;
• help communities become more data literate;
• address the social and ethical issues of a data-driven world.

We will open the challenge in September with a call for ideas and plan to award about $3 million. To keep up-to-date as we release more information, follow us on Twitter at @knightfdn or #newschallenge and sign up to get email updates on the challenge.

Chris Barr is director of media innovation and Shazna Nessa is director of journalism at Knight Foundation.  Follow them on Twitter @heychrisbarr and @shazna, or email them at [email protected] and [email protected].

Photo credit: (CC) Dave Herholtz on Flickr.com