Gordon Brown (Photo: World Economic Forum)

The World Wide Web Foundation (Web Foundation) today announced that it appointed former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to serve on its Board of Directors. Throughout the world, the Web Foundation leads programs that empower people to use the Web to nurture local economies and improve access to education and information. As a Board member, Brown will primarily advise the Web Foundation on ways to involve African communities and leaders in the development of sustainable programs that connect humanity and affect positive change.

The World Wide Web Foundation was created by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. In June 2008 Berners-Lee discussed the concept of the foundation with Gary Kebbel, then Knight Foundation's Journalism Program Director. On September 14, 2008, Alberto Ibargüen, Knight Foundation President and CEO, announced a decision to award a grant of $5 million over 5 years to seed the creation of the World Wide Web Foundation.

Knight CEO Alberto Ibargüen serves as the Web Foundation's chairman of the board.

For more, visit the Web Foundation's Web site.

Sarah Cohen, the Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, figured there had to be an easier way for journalists to organize their notes on chronological events.

“Time and place are two of the most important aspects in stories,” Cohen said. “Most reporters I know are still keeping a 40-page chronology in Word for long running stories.”

So, with a grant from Duke, Cohen hired two research scientists, Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg, to design a visual tool to allow reporters to not just organize their notes more effectively, but to also see the results of their research over time.

In this image, the tool tracked President Obama's first 100 days in office, by his location.

Viegas  and Wattenberg were the brains behind the IBM Many Eyes project and now work for Google.

The tool they came up with, an open source program that is free to download and use, makes it possible for journalists to look at the reams of data that went into those old 40-page text chronologies or multisheet spreadsheets in new and more useful ways.

“Say you’re working on the BP story, you can say, ‘I only want to see what happened in May having to do with birds,’’’ Cohen explained.

You can also look at how often President Barack Obama talked about the disaster in May, drill down into how when the president mentioned Gulf wildlife or any number of other functions. But the program doesn’t just making searching data easier – it’s a visual tool that makes understanding data points over time easier.

“The way journalism is going, as there are fewer boots on the ground. It’s important that they’re spending their time efficiently,” Cohen explained.

The International Multimedia Institute opened its doors to an inaugural class of 30 students this summer.  The new school for journalists is located in New Delhi, but participants come from all over India, as well as Bhutan and Liberia.

Students will learn the fundamentals of journalism and digital media skills such as podcasting and web design to equip them for journalism in the digital age.  The school is led by Dean Sunil Saxena, with support from Knight Fellows Jody McPhillips and Dave Bloss.

The institute is expected to create a cadre of journalists dedicated to covering issues that need attention in a rapidly changing India.  With lower tuition requirements than other schools, the program is accessible to an economically diverse spectrum of applicants.  There are also scholarships available.

The International Center for Journalists and the Society for Policy Studies launched the project, with support from the MacArthur Foundation and Knight Foundation.  The City University of New York is also assisting the school.

These days, as people use Facebook to support Haiti, end hunger, and stand behind other causes, social networks have become the place to make a statement.

Yet those clicks don’t necessarily turn into a movement to better communities. At least not yet.

With Knight Foundation’s focus on fostering informed and engaged communities, we started looking at ways to take that online energy a step further, and transform it into on-the-ground action.

The result is the Knight Technology for Engagement Initiative, which will initially invest $2.23 million in five projects that use the latest digital tools to help people connect for the greater good.

Take a look at what these first projects will do:

Craigslist Foundation ($750,000) will make it easy to find great ideas for community building. The foundation is creating an idea-sharing site, where institutions and individuals tell their community’s success stories and connect with people of like minds.

Jumo ($750,000), a nonprofit startup created by Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes, will use a social network to connect people with the issues and organizations that interest them, with the goal of fostering lasting relationships. The site matches users with relevant organizations, then engages them through e-mail, Facebook, Twitter or other applications to encourage contributions of time, skills or money. (Hughes talks about the project here.)

Code For America ($250,000) wants to transform city governments across the country by enlisting the nation’s most promising developers to apply Web 2.0 principles to civic problems. Based on the Teach for America model, members will create web applications to help make city governments more transparent, participatory and efficient. Knight Foundation’s funding will ensure the participation of Philadelphia, Pa. and Boulder, Colo., two Knight resident communities.

Community PlanIt ($250,000), a project out of Emerson College’s Engagement Game Lab, will revitalize the community planning process by developing an interactive game platform that lets stakeholders work—and play—together to solve problems. The grant will fund game development, in collaboration with four Knight communities.

And, finally, CEOS for Cities ($235,000) will test whether residents can help create solutions to local problems, filling a gap left by shrinking budgets. This project will connect developers and city officials to build a crowd-sourcing platform that invites citizens to work with government to identify problems and find answers. San Jose, Calif. and Grand Rapids, Mich., will test the idea.

Certainly, we live in an age of skepticism, with fewer folks trusting government and our society’s big institutions. At the same time, Americans – especially the young Millenials – are looking for new ways to make a difference.

Harnessing digital technology is one way to inspire neighbors to work together to solve their most entrenched problems. .

Knight Foundation is looking for more high-quality ideas that use technology to cultivate community engagement.

These first five grants that we’re announcing today are just the beginning. Learn more about the initiative, and how to submit an idea, by visiting www.technologyforegagement.org.

Paula Ellis

Vice President for Strategic Initiatives

Damian Thorman

National Program Director

This post by Micah Sifrey was originally published on TechPresident.com, the Personal Democracy Forum's blog.

Three years ago, we had a modest idea here at Personal Democracy Forum: that the internet could be a vehicle for transforming the presidential debates then underway. Instead of relying solely on journalists to determine the questions being asked of candidates; why not involve the public? Instead of giving the candidates 60 seconds to recite a canned answer, why not offer them unlimited time to prepare a serious response? And instead of letting candidates dodge questions during live debates, why not create a real feedback loop and let the public vote on whether they were satisfied with candidates' answers? Instead of debates tailored for (and constrained by) the demands of broadcast television, why not use the interactive and abundant nature of the internet to try something new and make debates far more participatory, content-rich, and accountable?

From that set of ideas was born 10Questions.com, a cross-partisan interactive platform for voter-candidate engagement that we are pleased to announce has been relaunched for the 2010 elections this week.

Here's how 10Questions got started: Like many people who were swept up by the 2008 campaign, we were struck by the public response to the CNN/YouTube debates. Tens of thousands of video questions were submitted by voters, and even though the rest of those debates were pretty conventional affairs--professional journalists selecting the questions, candidates sparring to score with pre-planned soundbites, everyone hoping for a live gaffe or semi-revealing moment--the mere inclusion of questions from YouTubers had the effect of doubling the ratings for those events.

Inspired by a group of online activists from the YouTube community, led by a high school teacher named David Colarusso, we decided to try a demonstration project. With the help of Colarusso, who had already built an interactive platform called CommunityCounts, we launched 10Questions.com in September of 2007. With a crosspartisan array of media partners, we asked the public to post questions to the presidential candidates, and invited everyone to vote them up or down. Then we invited all the candidates to post their answers, giving them all the time they needed to prepare serious answers. And then, to create a real feedback loop and try to incentivize the candidates to avoid dodging the questions, we invited the public to vote on whether they thought each candidate had actually answered each question.

In 2007, about 125,000 votes were cast on more than 300 questions submitted. The top 10 included questions on net neutrality, atheism, medical marijuana, warrantless wiretapping, corporate personhood, government spending, etc. Edwards, Gravel, Huckabee, Kucinich, and Obama each answered at least one of the top ten. Another 27,000 votes were cast judging their responses. By all accounts, 10Questions was successful in demonstrating that an open and interactive platform for voter-to-candidate-to-voter engagement could work, though in retrospect we believe it could have had a larger impact had we started sooner in the presidential campaign calendar. (You can view an archive of the 2007-08 site here.)

Now, with the support of Knight Foundation, we've just launched with a retooled version of 10Questions.com designed to allow anyone the ability to ask questions directly of many of the candidates seeking to represent them in the U.S. Congress, U.S. Senate, or as their state's governor.

The way it works is simple: anyone can post a question (video or text), anyone can vote those up or down (one vote per question per IP address), anyone can embed a question, a race, a state, or the entire country via a fully functional widget, on any website they want. To post or vote on a question, you just need a Google Account, as the site is powered by a souped-up version of the Google Moderator question platform (and for which we are grateful to our technology partners Google and YouTube.) No personal user information is being retained, though the site will allow anyone to view where questions and votes are coming from geographically, and to track the daily up-down voting on any question.

Between now and September 14, voters will have their say. Then we'll submit the top 10 questions (minus ones that are obscene or inappropriate) to the relevant candidates, and give them until October 14 to post their replies. After that we'll ask the public to again vote on whether they think the candidates actually answered the questions.

The 2010 midterms edition of 10Questions.com covers 43 of the most competitive races across the country, in 11 states: Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, Michigan, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. In each state we're partnering with major media outlets--The Philadelphia Inquirer in PA, The Miami Herald in FL, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in GA, The Detroit Free Press in MI, the San Francisco Chronicle in CA, The Albany Times-Union in NY, etc.--plus Politico and PBS's Patchwork Nation. (A full list is here.)

These media outlets’ websites are featuring the project on their news and opinion pages (See, for example, http://www.freep.com/politics&government and http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion), and their news and editorial teams will be covering 10Questions as a story, as well as featuring the user submitted questions and candidate answers in their election coverage.

We’ve already received candidate commitments to participate in the process from Barbara Boxer (D) and Carly Fiorina (R), both running to represent California in the U.S. Senate, in addition to other candidates across the country. Already, 110 questions have been posted to the site and votes are starting to pour in.

From a nonpartisan standpoint, this is a system that's built to reward substantive and thoughtful questions as well as responses — in addition to the criteria for voting on answers, there's also no time limit to the responses from candidates, and the candidates are explaining their positions directly to voters, not exactly in competition with one another. Instead of "gotcha," got content?

It's also designed to allow voters, not media elites, to drive the conversation. Thus, the platform's widget was designed to enable any website, any blog, any post to embed the full functionality of the 10Questions experience. The widget is customizable by state, and is available at: http://www.10questions.com/2010/share. If you choose to participate, you don't have to send traffic to 10Questions.com; you can simply embed the questions or races that you are interested in on your own site.

The top-level goal of this experiment is to fundamentally alter the culture of political debate in America, to definitively move it away from glorifying sound bites over substance. We strongly believe that providing citizens a direct, unfiltered voice in the political debates will result in a more responsive, robust democracy for all.

As Dr. Ami Bera (D), running to represent California’s 3rd Congressional District and a participant in 10Questions, recently said, “Now is not the time for the politics of division, but for a clear exchange of ideas on how we move forward as a region, state and nation. Interactive media presents a great opportunity to open a dialogue about the issues Americans face every day.”

This post was originally published by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas blog.

During the wave of violence in Kenya in 2008, that stemmed from conflicts among rival political factions, a group of friends created a system in which persons in various locations could send and share, via the Internet, news about attacks and killings. The Ushahidi (witness in Swahili) online platform, a Knight News Challenge Winner, became a model of success for participative coverage of news worldwide. Now the system has come to Brazil, with Voter 2010, an unprecedented election monitoring tool for citizens.

One of the more interesting aspects of the site is the visual depiction on a map of complaints or irregularities, using Google Maps. See below an interview with those responsible for Voter 2010: The creator, journalist Paula Góes; and her colleagues Diego Casaes and Thiana Biondo. They spoke with the Knight Center from London and Sao Paulo, where they work as editors for the international network of news blogs, Global Voices Online:

Where did the idea for the project come from?

Góes: I followed the use of Ushahidi in the elections in Mozambique (last October) and I had heard talk of other similar experiences in other countries. The idea of using it for elections in Brazil came at the end of last year, when I remembered, when I was working as a TV producer, the craziness of covering an election period -– we received a lot of complaints from the public but we never have the equipment to investigate all of them, not to mention the limitations from personnel, time and space on television, which resulted in frustration as much for the voter, who felt as if his testimony was irrelevant, as for the journalist, who felt useless in the face of so many complaints.

What is the main objective of Voter 2010?

Góes: The main goal is to observe the elections of 2010: to collaboratively create a picture of the electoral process in accordance with the voter's point of view, something that has never been seen in Brazil. Also, we want to create debate about the elections, especially among youth; to awake anti-corruption values; to promote citizenship and freedom of expression; and to serve as an information source for the media and authorities, like the Ministry of General Elections.

Why use Ushahidi?

Góes: To me, the platform seems like the perfect solution to satisfy the longing of the public to more actively participate in monitoring elections, giving voice to those voters who mostly live far from the capital, in places where the press doesn't reach or the media are dominated by certain political interests. Also for its crowdsourcing resources, the gathering and visualization of data, and for how simple it is to use. Of course, it counted a lot that it's free for us (besides being non-profit, Voter 2010 has no sponsors.)

How does the process of receiving and investigating complaints work?

Casaes: The Voter sends a report to the site to relato@eleitor2010.com via email, an sms message (although still not implemented), a hashtag on Twitter, messages on our social network sites, or on our own site. The reports are evaluated by a moderator that marks them as confirmed or not before publishing them. The moderator also will give a credibility grade to the source (for example, witness or victim). After publication, these reports will appear on a map and they can be searched by region or category. The information will be available to the whole world, in a transparent manner, even for the authorities and the mainstream media. Users also can confirm or deny reports through commentaries and positive/negative indicators.

Ushahidi has been used in various countries, under diverse circumstances. What are the most successful experiences?

Biondo: First on the list would be Kenya in 2008, for having created the platform, which now is being used in the whole world. Ushahidi returned to the action in Kenya this month with a platform christened Uchaguzi, that was used to cover the referendum on the new constitution, with a success that surpassed even the first time. We also can cite Madagascar, where the platform was installed to denounce violence by the government, which was selling land to South Koreans without revealing its true value and also promoting an increase in the price of food. The case drew the attention of the United Nations and Amnesty International.

Other successful cases were the coverage of the natural disasters in Chile and Haiti. Ushahidi was used to map areas affected by the earthquakes, which helped in the rescue of survivors, in the distribution of humanitarian aid, and reconstruction of the most affected cities. There were more than 1,000 reports. The platform is considered an excellent vehicle for collaboratively reporting tragedies, since there is a great effort from the public wanting to do its part.

And as for monitoring elections?

Góes: It was already done in Sudan, in Mexico, in Mozambique and in Bolivia, even though none of these was considered particularly successful and some were not open to the public (that is, it was done for official observation purposes). The expectation is that Brazil will be the first success case.

Have there been any especially interesting complaints so far?

Góes: I really liked the case of Coari, a city in the interior of the Amazons, maybe for being one of the first to be interesting and complete. The day Brazil debuted in the World Cup, the mayor handed out green and yellow shirts (the colors of the Brazilian soccer team) with the number of candidate that he supported on the back. His actions were reported on Voter 2010 the next day, with photos and everything. It's amazing the number of complaints about spam being spent to users who have not subscribed to receive those kinds of communications, which demonstrates that email addresses are being bought.

In another interesting case, we received a complaint about email propaganda. A member of a candidate's campaign team left a comment on the complaints page apologizing for sending the email to the person who filed the complaint, and that ended up being a confession to electoral fraud, as the database of emails had been obtained illegally: "Our emails are sent through a list provided by people from churches to charitable institutions that make up our database." Meanwhile, the law prohibits the use, donation or transfer of electronic records of customers, for candidates, parties or coalitions.

How does Voter 2010 interact with traditional media?

Góes: Voter 2010 can be a great source of information for the media, which can have access to the public's complaints in the zones they cover, and can carry out their own investigations to verify the complaints. Supplementing the work of the mainstream media, the platform is available to voters of all Brazilian cities, including those who do not receive a lot of space in the press, either because of distance or other factors. Journalists who are interested can register to receive alerts in their email specific to they the areas they cover.

Student News21 teams are getting their work published in national papers.  Outlets like the Washington Post and New York Times are running stories, photos and video from the students who are part of the program revitalizing journalism education at 12 universities.

Just last week, Columbia’s News21 team’s work was featured in the Washington Post.  Fellows produced “Brave Old World,” a report package on aging in America.  Their contributions ran in the Health and Science special section.

Video from North Carolina’s News21 fellows was featured on the washingtonpost.com homepage a few weeks ago. Their work “Powering a Nation:  The Truth About Energy,” was used in reporting the oil spill.

Other News21 fellows have had work published on the LA Times Photo Blog, in the Baltimore Sun, and the San Francisco Chronicle, among many others.

The News21 project is funded by the Carnegie-Knight Initiative.  In addition to improving student journalism skills, one anticipated outcome of the project is to show that journalism students can do stories at the highest levels.

Having reports published in the national presses is added motivation for these students, and allows them to develop an area of reporting expertise.  It demonstrates the quality of their work and helps them build portfolios.

Journalism schools are still pioneering new forms of news, with a role to play in shaping the future of news and information through their students and contributions in the field.

Watch as The Charlotte Observer reports on a Knight-sponsored "Random Act of Culture."

Strolling through a farmers market at lunchtime in Charlotte is always a treat. Sniffing the just-picked peaches, choosing a perfect ruby red tomato - those are usually the highlights.

My visit to Atherton Market was made even better Tuesday when opera filled the air. Yes, I knew a musical surprise was planned as part of Knight Foundation's new Random Acts of Culture series, so I waited with some anticipation. But my friend did not know what was about to happen.

First startled, she quickly became totally enthralled as singers from Opera Carolina serenaded each other and their unlikely audience. Shoppers pulled out camera phones and joined the throng of professional photographers on hand. Wide-eyed children and suit-clad dads alike applauded enthusiastically as yet another singer joined in.

Knight's grant to the Arts and Science Council to organize these Random Acts of Culture accomplished its goal, I'd say. I didn't poll the crowd, but I'm guessing many have never been to an Opera Carolina performance at the performing arts center downtown. But, now they've experienced the beauty and passion of Puccini, and hopefully they'll want to hear more.

This week at the Aspen Institute, there is a robust discussion exploring recommendations of the Knight Commission on Information Needs of Communities. The 2010 FOCAS, News Cities: The Next Generation of Healthy Informed Communities forum, will take place through August 18 and aims to arrive at specific action steps to help communities "improve their information health." The livestream is broadcasting now and the twitter stream, #FOCAS10, has been a great reflection of the discussion. Be sure to follow this important debate and join in the conversation.

Complete agenda:

Monday, August 16, 2010
(all times Mountain Standard Time)
8:30 a.m. – 8:45 a.m.           Opening of Forum – Introductory Remarks
8:45 a.m. – 10:15 a.m.         Plenary Roundtable I:  Local Journalism 2010
10:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.       Plenary Roundtable II:  Public Media Reform

Tuesday, August 17, 2010
8:45 a.m. – 9:45 a.m.           Plenary Roundtable III:  Universal Broadband Access
9:45 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.         Plenary Roundtable IV:  The New Literacies
11:15 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.       Plenary Roundtable V:  Public Engagement

Wednesday, August 18, 2010
8:45 a.m. – 10:15 a.m.         Plenary Roundtable VI.  Recommendations from the
Working Groups
10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.       Plenary Roundtable VII.  Moving Forward: Synthesis
of Action Steps

View the opening remarks of Knight Foundaiton CEO, Alberto Ibargüen below.

This entry was written by James E. Osteen, Jr. executive director of the Miami-Dade Broadband Coalition.

The Miami-Dade Broadband Coalition officially opened its doors with a ribbon cutting ceremony on Aug. 11.

The launch was the result of more than three years of planning with stakeholders in education, healthcare, government, non-profits and the private sector. The task has been challenging but immensely rewarding.

Our goal is to increase the "technology quota" of our community, in order to attract new industries and provide economic and educational opportunities for Miami-Dade County residents.  By banding together, the coalition’s anchor members have already begun to increase the availability of  high-speed Internet access across our community while at the same time lowering its cost.

A portion of the realized savings will be reinvested in the community through the coalition’s sponsorship of training and Internet connectivity for our underserved neighborhoods.  The coalition is funded by a grant from Knight Foundation, as part of its efforts to ensure communities have access to information through universal broadband.

While our goal is ambitious, our success will provide a more resilient, diverse and self-sustaining local economy.  We invite you to watch our progress through our website, and hope that you will join us in “Connecting our community for a brighter future!!”

-  James E. Osteen, Jr.