Mozilla and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation have launched the MoJo (Mozilla/Journalism) Innovation Challenge focusing on several of the most pressing problems in online media and journalism. Chicago Hacks/Hackers invites you to a brainstorming meeting intended to generate ideas worth submitting to the MoJo Innovation Challenge.

UPDATE (May 19): Phillip Smith, a key leader of the MoJo Innovation Challenge, will be flying in from Toronto for our event!

About the challenge

It's a three-year initiative of the Knight Foundation and Mozilla to harness open-web innovation for journalism. The goal is to identify 15 people who will receive paid fellowships to be embedded in leading newsrooms around the world. These fellows will create new tools, ideas, and news experiences that benefit both readers and newsmakers—all using open technologies.

Our Chicago event will focus on the third of three areas in which MoJo seeks to generate innovation: News apps for the future. Ideas for this challenge can be submitted between May 23 and June 5.

A summary of this challenge:

News organizations are creating a host of interactive tools, applications, visualizations and new ways for readers to interact with reporting and data. But most of these news applications and tools -- like ProPublica's "Dollars for Docs" or the LA Times' "Mapping LA" projects -- are confined to a single web site or page. They're not able to take on a life of their own, create new experiences for users beyond the traditional web browser, or tap into the growing app market.

HTML5 presents an opportunity to create entirely new ways of interacting with "news apps" that we haven't even imagined yet, and to create whole new experiences for users. What happens when we combine news and your phone and geolocation and your social network? How do we get data, reporting and local knowledge into the hands of users, wherever they may be, and irrespective of the devices and platforms they use?

The first challenge (Unlock video) is now closed. If you're interested in the second challenge (Re-imagine comments), you can submit your ideas until May 20.

Our event

Come to the Tribune Tower on Tuesday, May 24, to learn more about the MoJo Challenge, brainstorm some great ideas, eat pizza and meet your fellow hacks and hackers.

The agenda:

• 6:30-7:00pm: Pizza and networking
• 7:00-7:15pm: About the MoJo Innovation Challenge
• 7:15-8:30pm: Idea brainstorming
• 8:30pm: Drinks at the Billy Goat Tavern (optional)

More about the challenge and how to enter

It’s not necessary to have programming skills to enter any of the challenges. The idea is key. Sketch it out on a napkin, grab some colored markers and have at it.

Register for a MoJo account and click the project button. Submitted entries can be edited up to the last day of the specific challenge period.

The competitions will be evaluated in a similar format to the People’s Choice Award with room for review panel discretion.

The scoop on the fellowship selection process

From the pool of the challenge entries, 60 people will initially be selected to participate in a four-week intensive online Learning Lab on HTML5, jQuery and other open source tools. The purpose is to build a common knowledge of open-source development tools among the community.

From the Learning Lab group, 15 people will be tapped to participate in an all-expenses-paid hackathon in Berlin, Germany to implement some of the ideas generated in the challenges.

Then, a final group of five people will be chosen for a year-long, paid fellowship at one of five media hosts Al Jazeera, BBC, Boston.com, Guardian or Zeit Online.

This year’s stipend is approximately $65,000, with some flexibility depending on the host cities’ cost-of-living index. In 2012, the fellows group and media partners will each double to 10 slots.