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Mobile Technology Tops Knight's Challenge Awards

It’s said that Las Vegas is the place where dreams come true. And such was the case for sixteen lucky projects who were awarded a total of $5.5 million dollars from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The second annual Knight News Challenge is a contest that funds ideas to transform community news through digital technology It selects recipients whose ideas reflect a focus on mobile technology.

Innovative Projects Topped the Submissions
From initiatives intent on making it easier for cheap mobile phones to receive news feeds, like a voice database that lets users access news by phone, to the creation of better tools for mobile editing, letting journalists assign and edit stories on the fly, recipients seemed very aware of the global impact mobile technology can have on the way news is communicated.

Many projects also reflected the needs of nations where cellphones are the main form of digital communication.

With more than 3,000 submissions — roughly half from overseas — and an increase in the “number of people who wrote with projects related to online weeklies and online dailies in different small communities” the Knight News Challenge bred a collection of innovative initiatives focused on bridging the digital divide.

A project from Sir Tim Berners-Lee
Impressively, this year’s projects also included Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the World Wide Web (contrary to popular belief). He was awarded one of the awards for a project that promotes a partnership between Media Standards Trust and the UK-based Web Science Research Initiative. This project aims to create a technology that give users more information about the origins and sourcing of digital content.

The awards were presented as a part of the Interactive Media Conference & Tradeshow. With more than a dozen projects receiving funding, the next year will sure to be full of interesting adventures and digital technologies, poised to revolutionize and globalize the way users receive news.

Congratulations to all and we look forward to reaping the benefits of your technological experiments.