Former journalist Retha Hill was one of the 12 winners of this year's Knight News Challenge. Her winning concept, which was awarded £90,000, is CitySeed: an online platform where local people can propose topics for local news media attention.

The project will include a widget that news websites can put on their community pages to direct readers to suggestions for neighbourhood improvements.

Hill is director of the New Media Innovation Lab and professor of practice at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She spoke to Journalism.co.uk about how working as a local reporter planted the idea for CitySeed.

How did you come to enter the Knight News Challenge?

I've always wanted to enter the News Challenge but wanted to have a strong idea. I'm always thinking of new media products to help simplify daily interactions and chores. I've got dozens of ideas.

What inspired you?

I was inspired by Fix My Street and MySociety. I've long admired their work. Cody (my graduate student at the time) started noodling on different ways to help people connect in their communities. So instead of fixing a problem we came up with a way to help people come up with solutions and suggestions for ways of improving their communities.

How did your experience as a journalist help with developing the idea?

I was a local metro reporter at the Washington Post and before that at the Charlotte Observer in North Carolina, then was the first local editor for Washingtonpost.com. As a local journalist, I appreciate the difficulties in connecting to members of the community who are doing the good work of making their neighborhoods better. We often report on issues and the other stuff is harder to highlight on a regular basis. With CitySeed, local media partners can highlight interesting ideas that are bubbling up from the neighborhood level.

What has happened since hearing you had won?

It was a great feeling when we found out we had one. I consider this the Pulitzer Prize of news innovation. We sent out RFPs (request for proposals) a few weeks ago and got bids in for a developer. We have to select one. Then we can start the human-centered design process of interviewing and observing certain people in Phoenix - new comers, activists, government agency heads, editors, community group leaders. Then we will go back to these people with construction paper drawings of the app, then photoshop versions. This will help us refine the features. Then we start coding.

Visit the CitySeed website to keep track of the project's progress.

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