The Antonio Pizzigati Prize
The Antonio Pizzigati Prize, awarded by the Tides Foundation, recognizes outstanding public interest computing. Specifically, the award process seeks open source software developers that help nonprofits to be more effective in their efforts for social change. The first annual winner of the prize (and its $10,000 honorarium) is George Hotelling of CitizenSpeak. (Flickr photo by kathryn.) CitizenSpeak is a free e-mail advocacy service for grassroots organizations, and is available for download as a CivicSpace module at CivicSpace Labs.
The Grassroots Techie Awards
Sponsored by grassroots.org, the Grassroot Techie Awards honor six nonprofit organizations in recognition of their 'pioneering contributions in nonprofit online applications development.' This year's winners:
- Center for Arts Management and Technology at Carnegie Mellon University. CueRate facilitates the application and review processes for fellowships, exhibitions, festivals, universities, and other artwork programs requiring adjudication. Artists submit applications and work samples through a simple Web form, and panelists score artist applications based on questions that are customizable by the funding organization.
- Community Software Lab at UMass/Lowell. CSL developed The Hub, a database-backed web application that enables a searchable directory of nonprofit programs within a local community. The Merrimack Valley Hub was promoted as a case study.
- Davis Community Network. SimpleSite enables the easy creation of an organizational web site by any competent computer user, even if that person has no experience in the area of web page creation and design. DCN provides this as a free service to regional nonprofits, and has packaged the code as a free, downloadable add-on to Plone.
- e-NC Authority. The Service Provider Update (SPU) site is an official North Carolina resource on statewide broadband deployments. Service providers maintain their own information, while the state both improves efficiency and enhances the accuracy of its resources.
- ISIS-Inc. SEXINFO delivers sexual health information to youth in San Francisco via their mobile phones. Users can text SEXINFO to 61827 for a menu of options.
- CTC VISTA at UMass/Boston. The CTC VISTA Project Application and Reporting System matches projects to VISTA volunteers while streamlining the process of getting paperwork through this federally-funded program.
The NTEN Prize
Beth Kanter was recognized today as the most valuable member of the nonprofit technology community. (Flickr photo by Bryper.) Super-blogger Beth was given lifetime subscriptions to Typepad and Flickr as a token of appreciation. Special thanks to Six Apart and Yahoo! for going out of their way to make this happen...apparently, their accounting systems are not built to manage lifetime accounts!
