Using Technology to Inspire Community to Action

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 the Knight Foundation’s focus on fostering informed and engaged communities, they 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. CEOs for Cities is one of the five recipients of a combined $2.23 million to help residents take action, using the latest digital tools, to strengthen their communities.

The CEOs for Cities project, to be developed in Grand Rapids and San Jose, will test whether residents can help create solutions to local problems, filling a gap left by shrinking municipal budgets. This project will build a crowd-sourcing platform that invites residents to work with city hall to identify problems and find answers.

Knight believes that 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.

Learn more about the initiative, and how to submit an idea, by visiting www.Technologyforegagement.org.

  

Name*Name*Name*Matthew, August 30, 2010

In Grand Rapids and would like to participate but the URL doesn't work.

Link: URL URL

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