Photo credit: Flickr user Ed Schipul The Knight News Challenge on open government will run from Feb. 12 to March 18. It’s an opportunity to win part of the $5 million we’ll use this year to support innovative projects. Related Links “News Challenge launches with an OpenIDEO twist” on KnightBlog “#newschallenge on Open Gov: an […]
Article · January 30, 2013 by John Bracken
Above: Michelle Lee (l) and Serena Wales (r) with Textizen, a News Challenge: Mobile winner. Photo credit: Molly J. Smith. On Jan. 10 I joined staff from about 20 foundations at the MacArthur Foundation to compare notes on philanthropic prize competitions in a gathering organized by The Case Foundation, The Joyce Foundation and MacArthur Foundation. We kicked off the meeting by […]
Article · January 25, 2013 by John Bracken
How can we help? The Knight News Challenge has several stages: an idea, a proposal, the review process, and due diligence. Yesterday we reached the final stage: announcing the winners of the mobile challenge. This morning at a gathering on mobile media at Arizona State University’s Cronkite School we are formally introducing them via live […]
Article · January 18, 2013 by John Bracken
Photo credit: Flickr user Visionello Last week I wrote about one of the highlights of my job – working with social entrepreneurs. This week, I want to talk about one of its lowlights: saying no. Before the holidays, Felix Salmon wrote a column about giving. He focused on encouraging individual donors, but some of his observations apply to foundations, […]
Article · January 10, 2013 by John Bracken
At Knight Foundation, I’m lucky to be able to work with and support a number of social entrepreneurs working to improve the way news and information flow and are used – people like Anu Sridharan, Waldo Jaquith, Miguel Paz and Seth Flaxman. The video above explains the motivations of one of them, Caitria O’Neill of Recovers. org – and closes with a […]
Article · January 4, 2013 by John Bracken
As 2012 ends, we want to give you an update on the Knight News Challenge. For 2013, we’re planning two News Challenges. The first will focus on tools for open government and will open in February. The second will open in the fall, on a topic we’ll announce early next year. We ran three contests […]
Article · December 20, 2012 by John Bracken
By John Bracken, director journalism/media innovation at Knight Foundation Today, I’m speaking at the SOCAP conference on a panel, New Alliances in Social Innovation, with Knight partners Jesse Shapins of Zeega and Corey Ford of Public Radio Exchange. The panel was put together and will be moderated by Jeff Leifer. I’m talking about four things that […]
Article · October 2, 2012 by John Bracken
Photo Credit: Flickr user girl_onthe_les We closed the Knight News Challenge on mobile yesterday. Thank you to everyone who applied – we received about 525 applications. Over the next few weeks we’ll be carefully reviewing them. With the help of advisors, we’ll read each application at least three times. On Oct. 5 we will bring about […]
Article · September 11, 2012 by John Bracken
Photo Credit: Flickr user girl_onthe_les We’re in the final hours of the Knight News Challenge: Mobile – the window for applications closes Monday at 12 noon ET. – the window for applications closes Monday at 12 noon ET. On Friday, Chris Sopher and I fielded questions about the contest – here are some thoughts for applicants based on the […]
Article · September 9, 2012 by John Bracken
Photo Credit: Flickr user girl_onthe_les The Knight News Challenge on mobile is now open for your applications. We’re asking eight questions. We’re asking you to make the case for your idea on using mobile to improve news, information, democracy and communities, and your ability to execute on it. We also encourage you to link to […]
Article · August 29, 2012 by John Bracken
Yesterday was a busy first day of the MIT-Knight Civic Media conference. You can catch up via the conference liveblog. Highlights included first panel, Dan Sinker’s summary of the hack session, the announcement of the Knight News Challenge winners and details about Knight’s new prototype fund with Michael Maness and Joi Ito. We’re going to […]
Article · June 19, 2012 by John Bracken