The Knight Foundation has selected 52 applicants that will move onto the next stage of its News Challenge.
There’s a theme you’ll see running through the proposals that have made it thus far — namely, networking. That’s because networks are the focus of this year’s first round. (The Knight News Challenge now offers three rounds instead of one competition per year.)
What sort of networks? “The Internet, and the mini-computers in our pockets, enable us to connect with one another, friends and strangers, in new ways,” Knight’s John Bracken wrote in a release when the round was first announced. “We’re looking for ideas that build on the rise of these existing network events and tools — that deliver news and information and extend our understanding of the phenomenon.”
Consultant Ryan Jacoby wrote further about some of the trends he saw among applicants. You can read more about that here.
Here’s the list of who’s moving onward to the next round of the challenge (49 are listed because two were closed entries so we’re not able to share them):
Amauta (Eric French)
Asia Beat (Jeffrey Wasserstrom/Angilee Shah)
Bridging the Big Data Digital Divide (Dan Brickley)
Change the Ratio (Rachel Sklar)
CitJo (Sarah Wali/Mahamad El Tanahy)
Connecting the global Hacks/Hackers network (Burt Herman, Hacks/Hackers)
Connecting the World with Rural India (Brian Conley)
Cont3nt.com (Anton Gelman/Daniel Shaw)
Cowbird (Jonathan Harris/Aaron Huey)
Data Networks are Local (Erik Gundersen, Development Seed)
DifferentFeather (Elana Berkowitz/Amina Sow)
DIY drone fleets (Ben Moskowitz/Jack Labarba)
Docs to WordPress to InDesign (William Davis, Bangor Daily News)
Electoral College of Me (John Keefe/Ron Williams)
EnviroFact (Beth Parke/Chris Marstall)
Funf.org: Open Mobile Sourcing (Nadav Aharony/Alan Gardner; MIT)
Global Censorship Monitoring System (Ruben Bloemgarten, James Burke, Chris Pinchen)
Google News for the Social Web (Sachim Kandar, Andrew Montalenti, Parse.ly)
Hawaii Eco-Net (Jay April, Maui Community Television)
Hypothes.is (Dan Whaley/Randall Leeds)
IAVA New GI Bill Veterans Alumni Network Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (Paul Rieckhoff)
m.health.news.network (Marcus Messner and Yan Jin)
MediaReputations.com (Anton Gelman/Daniel Shaw)
Mesh Potato 2.0 (Steve Song/David Rowe)
Mobile Publishing for Everyone (David Jacobs/Blake Eskin/Natalie Podrazik)
NOULA (Tayana Etienne)
Peepol.tv (Eduardo Hauser/Jeff Warren)
PreScouter (Dinesh Ganesarajah)
Prozr (Pueng Vongs/Sherbeam Wright)
Rbutr (Shane Greenup/Craig O’Shannessy)
Recovers.org (Caitria O’Neill/Alvin Liang)
Secure, Anonymous Journalism Toolkit (Karen Reilly)
Sensor Networks for News (Matt Waite, University of Nebraska)
Shareable (Seth Schneider and Neal Gorenflo)
Tethr (Aaron Huslage/Roger Weeks)
The PressForward Dashboard (Dan Cohen/ Joan Fragaszy Troyano, George Mason University)
ThinkUpApp (Gina Trapani/Anil Dash)
Tracks News Stories (David Burrows, designsuperbuild.com)
Truth Goggles (Dan Schultz)
Truth Teller (Cory Haik/Steven Ginsberg, Washington Post)
Unconsumption Project (Rob Walker/Molly Block)
UNICEF GIS (Joseph Agoada, UNICEF)
Watchup (Adriano Farrano/Jonathan Lundell)
Water Canary (Sonaar Luthra/Zach Eveland)
A Bridge Between WordPress and Git (Robert McMillan / Evan Hansen)
In the Life (Joe Miloscia, American Public Media)
Get to the Source (Joanna S. Kao/MIT)
Farm-to-Table School Lunch (Leonardo Bonanni, Sourcemap)
Partisans.org (Michael Trice)
Protecting Journalists (Diego Mendiburu and Ela Stapley)
What do you think about the finalists? Who are your favorites and who do you think should win?