Chicago, IL (August 14, 2007) – The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced today a public competition that will award $2 million in funding to emerging leaders, communicators, and innovators shaping the field of digital media and learning.  The competition is part of MacArthur’s $50 million Digital Media and Learning initiative that aims to help determine how digital technologies are changing the way young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life. 

“An open competition is an excellent way to identify and inspire new ideas about learning in an increasingly digital world,” MacArthur Foundation President Jonathan Fanton said.  “We do not yet know how much people are changing because of digital media, but we hope that this competition will help support the most innovative thinking about learning, the formation of ethical judgments, peer mentoring, creativity, and civic participation, all of which are increasingly conducted online.”

Awards will be given in two categories:

•  Innovation Awards will support learning entrepreneurs and builders of new digital environments for informal learning. Winners will receive $250,000 or $100,000.

•  Knowledge Networking Awards will support communicators in connecting, mobilizing, circulating or translating new ideas around digital media and learning. Winners will receive a $30,000 base award and up to $75,000.

The open competition will be administered by a network of educators and digital innovators called “HASTAC” (the Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory).  HASTAC was founded and is primarily operated at two university centers, the University of California Humanities Research Institute and the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.  HASTAC has a network reaching more than 80 institutions globally.  The choice of HASTAC, one of a new breed of “virtual institutions,” reflects MacArthur’s goals in promoting next-generation learning. Applications will be judged by an expert panel of scholars, educators, entrepreneurs, journalists, and other digital media specialists.

“We are already teaching a generation of students who do not remember a time before they were online,” said Cathy N. Davidson, John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University and co-founder of HASTAC.  “Their social life and informal learning are interconnected.  They don’t just consume media, they customize it.  These students bring fascinating new skills to our classrooms, but they also bring an urgent need for critical thinking about the digital world they have inherited and are shaping.”

As part of their prize, awardees will receive special consultation support on everything from technology development to management training.  Winners will be invited to showcase their work at a conference that will include venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, educators and policy makers seeking the best ideas about digital learning.  Applications are due Oct. 15, 2007 and prizewinners will be announced in January.  Detailed information on the competition is available online at www.dmlcompetition.net, incluidng an FAQ about the competition.  

“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.” 

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About the MacArthur Foundation
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private, independent grant making institution dedicated to helping groups and individuals foster lasting improvement in the human condition. More information is available at www.macfound.org or 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