Net Squared Mashup Challenge

Last year, Chris Hofmann and I participated in Net Squared’s annual conference as judges of a challenge that awarded various social enterprises leveraging technology and the Web to create social change.  Frank Hecker from Mozilla Foundation also supported the conference by providing some funding.  You might remember that Miro (who was at that time changing their name from The Democracy Player) participated in the conference and was one of three finalists who took home an award.  (Mozilla Corp also granted $100,000 to Miro through the Participatory Culture Foundation to support Miro.)

It’s that time of year again and NetSquared approached me with new ideas for the upcoming conference, specifically describing a “mashup challenge”. The NetSquared Mashup Challenge will bring together a unique mix of people from the public and private sectors to develop and release mashups designed to provide deeper insight into the social issues affecting communities around the globe. The challenge is managed through a process that emphasizes community engagement, participation, and collaboration.  NetSquared asked me to think about organizations who might participate.  They also asked if any developers had interest in working with the organizations that are already enrolled in the challenge.   I offered to blog about it, so if you’re interested just let me know and I can connect you with NetSquared.  Nominated projects can be found here.  Finally, if you know an organization who should participate and you’d like to work on the mashup with them, send me a note and we can make it happen.

Last year’s challenge brought together 21 organizations and supplied a variety of resources, including a share of the $100,000 Innovation Fund to help those organizations move their social web projects forward.  It was a good experience and I’m looking forward to helping again.