[liberationtech] Fwd: Harvard/Stanford Call for Ideas for a Better Internet, Submission Deadline 4/15

[Yosem Companys]

fyi -- Elizabeth Stark is teaching at the Stanford Law School this spring
quarter...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Elizabeth Stark <elizabeth.stark at stanford.edu>
Date: Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 3:58 PM
Subject: Harvard/Stanford Call for Ideas for a Better Internet, Submission
Deadline 4/15

The Berkman Center at Harvard University and Stanford Law School are pleased
to announce a new initiative in which we invite the world to submit their
'Ideas for a Better Internet.' We are seeking out brief proposals from
anyone with ideas as to how to improve the Internet. Students at Harvard and
Stanford will work through early next year to implement the ideas selected.
Interested parties should submit their ideas at http://bit.ly/i4bicfp by
Friday, April 15. Please spread the word far and wide, and follow us on
Twitter at http://twitter.com/Ideas4BetterNet.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and Stanford
Law School are pleased to announce 'Ideas for a Better Internet,' a joint
initiative aimed at fostering innovation around the most pressing issues
currently facing the Internet. We invite anyone — interested individuals,
scholars, entrepreneurs, organizations, and others with great ideas — to
submit a proposal.

We are looking for proposals that will make the Internet more secure, more
accessible, more open, or just plain better — ideas that recognize the
interactions of law, policy, business, and code and expand on the notion
that the Internet is a global information network. Proposals might address
problems in data security, Internet infrastructure, digital literacy, or
anything else, so long as they address the ultimate goal of making the
Internet a better place for everyone. We also believe that the Internet can
be a force for positive social change; to that end, we are interested in
proposals that use the Internet's power to solve problems offline.

Over the next eight months, technology-focused Harvard and Stanford students
will select and help implement several of the submitted proposals. We will
collaborate with high-profile Internet entrepreneurs, policy-makers, and
other interested parties to bring the best ideas to fruition. This is an
unprecedented opportunity for developers, designers, innovators, hackers,
social engineers, and anyone else committed to improving the Internet to
connect with a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary group of stakeholders who
will, over the course of a yearlong seminar, implement and launch an idea
that will help change the Internet for the better.

This initiative is not a standard technology venture contest focused just
around raising capital and generating publicity. We hope, rather, to guide
the selected proposal through a holistic process that seeks to connect
projects with advisors, funders and collaborators who can make them happen
from a legal, logistical, conceptual, and technological perspective.

WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?
Does the solution meaningfully contribute to building a better Internet?
Does it enhance openness, accessibility, security, or something else of
value to the public?
Does the solution effectively respond to a particular problem or need?
What, realistically, will the project change about the Internet? How
significant will the change be?
Does the proposal account for realistic challenges and constraints?

ELIGIBILITY
This call for proposals is open to any person or group with an idea for a
better Internet and the willingness to work through a project if it is
selected by the seminar.

DEADLINE
All proposals must be submitted by 12:00 PM PT on Friday, April 15, 2011.

TIMELINE
Finalists will be promptly notified following a panel review of submissions.
Winning proposals will be selected by May 1. The implementation process will
continue through 2011, and will culminate in a public demonstration of the
project before leading scholars, policy-makers, and entrepreneurs in early
2012.

SUBMISSION POLICY
The idea behind this solicitation is to get ideas out there; this is not a
competition in the usual sense, and we are all looking to contribute to the
common good — we aim, with appropriate curation, to make publicly available
what you submit if your idea is selected, and also anything we build upon it
as a class. We hope that people on the Internet at large will use the ideas
you submit as springboards towards building a better Internet.

HOW TO SUBMIT
Interested parties should submit their ideas in 500 words or less at
http://bit.ly/i4bicfp.

QUESTIONS
If you have any further questions or would like to submit your proposal via
email, contact us at info at i4bi.org.
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