DOHA: The Innovation and Research group at Al Jazeera Media Network has kicked off its first major community initiative with an online Innovation Challenge. It is an open competition aiming to elicit new ideas about storytelling in mobile and web applications.
The Innovation Challenge competition offers substantial rewards, including the possibility of future incubation of winning ideas, invitations to large innovation events in the future, and $25,000 in cash prizes.
In a statement yesterday, Morad Rayyan from Al Jazeera Innovation and Research invited software designers, technologists and developers from around the world to participate:
“The topic of exploration for this first Challenge will be ‘non-linear narratives’.
“Typically, the stories and content we create and consume are linear, and follow a logical, cause and effect structure. Yet our minds and memories work in a non-linear way, and this offers an opportunity for new types of storytelling, and new methods of media consumption.
“The applications and software put together for the Innovation Challenge should provide new, flexible, and reusable methods of creating or consuming such non-linear narratives.”
Al Jazeera is looking for participants from its global audience with a variety of expertise, ranging from idea conception, through design/prototyping, and all the way to development. Full eligibility requirements are available at the Challenge website.
Early registration is encouraged so participants can start drafting their submissions, or browse existing submissions as they begin appearing.
Challenge participants can also team up through the platform with others who are looking for assistance with their ideas, which would be helpful considering that the time period for submissions is limited.
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