Knight-Mozilla Initiative: Kicks-off with Innovation Challenge 1 – Unlocking Video

Knight-Mozilla Innovation Challenges
After our initial message last week, we are happy to announce that the first 2011 Knight-Mozilla News Innovation Challenge is now open!

What is the first challenge?

Unlocking Video: How can new web video tools transform news storytelling?

To enter the first challenge – all you need to do is submit a sketch and a paragraph that shows your idea for telling stories better with online video.

For this challenge, we’re especially looking for web video hackers. Broadly, we want to reach programmers and developers; entrepreneurs; news hackers; reporters; design thinkers; journalism teachers and students; or anyone using the news to invent something new.

Head on over to the challenge site now or read on for more information and inspiration.

Why are we starting with video?

Video is a central part of many people’s daily news experience. But most online video is still stuck in a boring embedded box, like “TV on a web page,” separated from the rest of the page content. This offers little in the way of context or opportunities for viewers to engage more deeply.

New open video tools make it possible to pull data from across the web right into the story. Information related to the video can literally “pop” into the page. And videos themselves can change, dynamically adapting as stories evolve. The challenge is to use these tools in ways that serve the story. How can we enrich news video through things like added context, deeper viewer engagement, and the real time Web? What are the untapped possibilities inherent in many-to-many, Web video?

What are we looking for?

We’re hoping you have design, software or web app ideas that:

  • Are highly innovative and have potential for broad adoption in the news community.
  • Produce re-usable, open-source technology that benefits the Web as a whole.
  • Are useful to real-world media organizations, or born out of long-established newsroom experience.

If your idea gets traction, you’ll have a chance to develop it further with support from some of Mozilla’s brightest web development stars. If your idea is really good, you may even win a chance to build it out as an app at one of the world’s leading news outlets.

You can enter this first challenge now if you have ideas for the future video and news online. You can also learn more about the challenge process on the Knight Mozilla News Innovation Partnership website.

What is the Knight-Mozilla News Technology Partnership?

The Knight-Mozilla News Technology Partnership (aka “MoJo”) is a three-year partnership between the Knight Foundation and Mozilla to harness open Web innovation for journalism. Through a series of innovation challenges and community events, we will identity 15 fellows that will be embedded in leading newsrooms around the world. These fellows will create new tools, ideas, and news experiences that benefit both readers and newsmakers—all using open technologies. Learn more.

To stay informed and involved as this and other challenges progress, follow @knightmozilla on Twitter and sign up for our community list to stay up to date with the challenges. Also, check out our growing list of meetups.