Atlanta’s Hacks/Hackers first event with a Knight NewsChallenge Panel
On Monday November 22, the Atlanta group of Hacks/Hackers hosted its inaugural meetup at RíRá Irish Pub in Midtown. Approximately 50 people attended the event , with hacks and hackers from media companies like Turner/CNN, Cox Media Group and the AJC; academics and students from institutions like the University of Georgia, Kennesaw State University and Georgia Tech; entrepreneurs, consultants, small-biz media companies, and many others (including a librarian!)
After an hour of socializing, Jennifer 8. Lee, who came down from New York for the event, explained the details of this year’s Knight News Challenge, a grant competition for open-source news and information projects in geographic communities that gives away up to $5 million a year.
Then, Ian Bogost, a researcher and Digital Media professor at Georgia Tech, talked about Newsgames, an effort to understand the relationship between news and video games that received funding from the Knight Foundation three years ago, and The Cartoonist, a project that will develop a free tool that creates interactive, cartoon-like current event games that Bogost won a News Challenge grant for in 2010 with Michael Mateas.
Finally, G. Patton Hughes, publisher of Paulding.com who won a News Challenge grant in 2007, shared his experience from applicaton process and his life after.
During the Q&A a number of topics were discussed, like whether one can submit a proposal that builds on previous winning projects (the answer is yes – PRX was a 210 winner that’s building on the 2008 winner spot.us to make it work for radio for example), the fact that open streets map is something the Knight Foundation is keeping an eye on (hear that, News Challenge applicants?) and why legacy media has such a hard time innovating (for example, the biggest obstacles in the way of more gaming in media is inertia, process and organizational politics).
The event, which also doubled up as an Online News Association meetup, was sponsored by the Knight Foundation and organized by Sergio Goldenberg and Mathilde Piard.
More photos at Flikr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sergiogoldenberg/sets/72157625453640684/
Tweets from the event: http://www.twitblend.com/a/730001