2012 Knight News Challenge first round to open this month
Competition has been split into three shorter, more focused rounds – the first of which opens on 27 February
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There used to be something here that couldn't be migrated - please contact us at info@journalism.co.uk if you'd like to see this updated! The Knight News Challenge – which provides funding for digital journalism innovations – will open the first of three new competition rounds this year on 27 February.
The competition has been redesigned, split into three shorter, more focused rounds instead of one bigger annual award, as announced by the Knight Foundation at the World Editors Forum in Vienna last year.
The theme for the first round is "networks" and entries will be accepted between 27 February and 17 March – with winners announced in June.
The foundation said it was seeking ideas that "leverage and maximise the impact of the best existing media platforms to convey news and information".
A second round, to be held later in the spring, will be an open competition, looking for new ideas broadly. The theme for the third round, later this year, has yet to be determined.
The Knight News Challenge is run by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and awards funding to innovative ideas for techniques and technologies which engage communities with news and information. Since 2007, Knight has invested more than $100 million (£63 million) in new technologies and techniques,
Explaining the changes on the Knight Foundation blog, director of digital media John Bracken said the new three-times-a-year approach aimed to encourage " continuous improvement and iteration " in the industry, or "the hacker way".
He said: "Hacking just means building something quickly or testing the boundaries of what can be done. Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete.
"That iterative approach is something we're trying to build here at Knight Foundation. In re-crafting the News Challenge to run three times this year, we are trying to emulate [Mark] Zuckerberg's exhortation to 'always keep shipping'."
More details about the challenge and how to apply can be found at www.knightfoundation.org
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