[xmca] FYI: 2008 Digital Media and Learning Competition is now open

MACARTHUR'S $2 MILLION DIGITAL MEDIA AND LEARNING COMPETITION FOCUSES ON
PARTICIPATORY LEARNING, GOES INTERNATIONAL

Chicago, IL (August 18, 2008) – The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation, in collaboration with the University of California, Irvine, Duke
University and the virtual network HASTAC, announced today a second annual
open-call competition that will provide $2 million in awards to innovators
shaping the field of digital media and learning. The Digital Media and
Learning Competition, supported through a grant to the University of
California, Irvine and administered by HASTAC, has been expanded to pilot
international submissions and introduce a new category focusing on young
innovators aged 18-25.

"Digital media are helping to make the world smaller, spread ideas, and
encourage collaboration across borders and among people who otherwise might
not have an opportunity to work together," said MacArthur President Jonathan
Fanton. "To ensure support for the freshest thinking and most innovative
applications of digital media to learning, we have expanded this year's
competition to include international submissions and ideas from young
people, who are often the pioneers of the digital space."

Awards will be given in two categories:

• Innovation in Participatory Learning Awards will support projects that
demonstrate new modes of participatory learning, in which people take part
in virtual communities, share ideas, comment on one another's projects, and
advance goals together. Successful projects will promote participatory
learning in a variety of environments: through the creation of new digital
tools, modification of existing ones, or use of digital media in some other
novel way. Submissions will be accepted from applicants in Canada, People's
Republic of China, India, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Russia,
Singapore, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States,
countries in which HASTAC or MacArthur have significant experience. Winners
will receive between $30,000 and $250,000.

• Young Innovator Awards are designed to encourage young people aged 18-25
to think boldly about "what comes next" in participatory learning and to
contribute to making it happen. Winners will receive funding to do an
internship with a sponsor organization to help bring their most visionary
ideas from the "garage" stage to implementation. For this competition cycle,
submissions will only be accepted from applicants in the United States.
Winners will receive between $5,000 and $30,000.

This year's competition will include an online forum where applicants can
post their ideas, solicit feedback, offer their services, and connect with
other applicants and potential collaborators. All material posted to this
"Digital Media and Learning Scratchpad" is publicly accessible.
Participation is voluntary and not required for application.

"Participatory learning allows people to work together online toward some
collective purpose, sharing knowledge, insights, and expertise, and most
important, learning together," said Cathy N. Davidson, John Hope Franklin
Humanities Institute Professor at Duke University and HASTAC co-founder.

The open competition will be administered by the Humanities, Arts, Science
and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC), which was founded and is
primarily operated at two university centers, the University of California
Humanities Research Institute at the University of California, Irvine and
the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University. Applications will be
judged by an expert panel of scholars, educators, entrepreneurs,
journalists, and other digital media specialists.

"With the digital media and learning initiative, the MacArthur Foundation is
playing a leading role in reshaping both institutional and informal learning
practices," said David Theo Goldberg, HASTAC co-founder and director of the
University of California's Humanities Research Institute. "Traditional
learning practices are being supplemented and supplanted by new digital
media, which both enable and extend their reach through virtual institutions
like HASTAC. This is a natural partnership."

Competition winners will join an existing community of 17 awardees from last
year, including a mobile musical laboratory, a digital humanitarian
assistance game derived from existing military simulation technology, and a
mobile phone project hat connects young African social entepreneurs with
young North American professionals. Winners also will be invited to showcase
their work at a conference that will include venture capitalists,
entrepreneurs, educators and new media experts seeking the best ideas about
digital participatory learning.

Applications are due Oct. 15, 2008 and winners will be publicly announced in
April 2009. Detailed information on the competition is available online at
http://www.dmlcompetition.net.

###

About the MacArthur Foundation
The MacArthur Foundation supports creative people and effective institutions
committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. In addition
to selecting the MacArthur Fellows, the Foundation works to defend human
rights, advance global conservation and security, make cities better places,
and understand how technology is affecting children and society. MacArthur's
$50 million digital media and learning initiative seeks to help determine
how digital media are changing how young people learn, play, socialize, and
participate in civic life. More information is available at
http://www.macfound.org or http://www.digitallearning.macfound.org.

About HASTAC
A consortium of humanists, artists, scientists, social scientists and
engineers from universities and other civic institutions across the U.S. and
internationally, HASTAC is committed to new forms of collaboration for
thinking, teaching, and research across communities and disciplines fostered
by creative uses of technology. More information is available at
www.hastac.org.

Press Contacts:
Jennifer Humke, MacArthur Foundation, jhumke@macfound.org, 312 726 8000
Mandy Dailey, Duke University HASTAC, mandy.dailey@duke.edu, 919 668 1910

-- 
Mandy Dailey
Program Coordinator
Digital Media and Learning Competition, HASTAC
Duke University
128 Franklin Center, Box 90403
Durham, NC 27708-0403
Phone: (919) 668-1910
Fax: (919) 684-8749
www.hastac.org
www.dmlcompetition.net
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