Journalism and media organization The Knight Foundation is dishing out $2 million for innovative new ideas that harness data to improve the health of communities.
This year, the foundation will focus its annual news challenge on health data, and it’s enlisted the help of a few big-name health collaborators. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the California HealthCare Foundation, the Clinton Foundation and the Health Data Consortium helped set the framework for the challenge and will take part in promoting it and reviewing submissions.
The challenge calls on companies, non-profits or individuals anywhere in the world to dream up ideas on how to turn large public datasets into useful information that helps health consumers make better decisions or informs local health policy.
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As one example of the kind of project that might get funded, the foundation referenced Asthmapolis’ combining of weather and pollen data with user symptoms to help asthma patients manage their condition.
Earlier this year, the foundation dedicated $3.2 million toward projects using open government data and felt that health data was the logical next theme to address. John Bracken, director of media innovation at the Knight Foundation, said the health data challenge will likely fund six to 10 projects. “Our hope is that we will glean real learnings and relevant products that will improve the way we live our lives through data,” he said.
The “inspiration phase” of the challenge will open Aug. 19, and funding applications will be accepted Sept. 3 through Sept. 17.
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