Two years ago I attended NetSquared (which that year was a learning conference about how nonprofits could use social media tools). I, like most people attending, heard about YouTube and Facebook for the first time. And more importantly, I learned how to launch a blog.

This year, the conference focused on “mashups” for good. At first I thought the conference had become a hardcore tech conference (I like technology, but it is not my profession and I don’t attend tech conferences). But as I looked more at the structure (two days of presentations by 21 projects that had already been culled down by online voting, followed by winners being announced with cash awarded) I realized that what I was really looking at was an early example of the “nonprofit roadshow” concept that I wrote about in my Financial Times column about philanthropy in the year 2033.

TechSoup (the producer of NetSquared) CEO Daniel Ben-Horin confirmed this view of NetSquared in an email to me:

One point I want to make to you is that from where we sit this year’s conference is much *more* about philanthropy than the past conferences. We think we’re working up a model for distributed philanthropy that is, in fact, highly congruent with ‘the next great wave of philanthropy.’ The “distributed” part works three ways–(a) the projects can be anywhere; (b) the people contributing can be anywhere; (c) by ‘contribution’, we mean both cash and what is actually just as if not more valuable–terrific technology talent committed to social change.

In fact, what we’ve 3/4-built, 1/4 wandered into is a new business offering – running N2-like challenges in a variety of formats. So, without really pushing this, we already have 5 clients for this product—including Yahoo and Case Foundation. They all want to hire us because (a) we have the engine; (b) we have the technical community; (c) we have access to philanthropy and investment.

You can check out an overview of the conference and see the winning projects here. Note that Peter Deitz’s project Social Actions was a big winner (Peter was a member of the Tactical Philanthropy Blog Team that covered the Council on Foundations conference.) ]]> http://www.tacticalphilanthropy.com/2008/05/netsquared-and-philanthropy/feed 0 http://www.tacticalphilanthropy.com/2008/03/n2y3-mashup-challenge-project-gallery http://www.tacticalphilanthropy.com/2008/03/n2y3-mashup-challenge-project-gallery#comments Mon, 24 Mar 2008 15:22:34 +0000 Sean Stannard-Stockton http://tacticalphilanthropy.com/2008/03/n2y3-mashup-challenge-project-gallery This year’s NetSquared conference is a celebration of mashups. You still have time to vote (until 5pm pacific time today) for which contestants will be invited to the conference and even if you don’t vote, you can still check out all the projects.

Google’s engineers, product and project managers want to help bring your NetSquared Mashup Challenge idea to life!

Next Friday, March 7th, NetSquared Mashup Challenge applicants have an incredible opportunity to participate in a Hackathon at the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA from Noon-5 PM.

A group of Google engineers, product and project managers will be available to help you think through your idea, answer questions, give advice and start building your mashup for social change!

Are you excited? We are!

To attend you need to submit your project idea to the NetSquared Mashup Challenge. The application process is just that, a process. Fill out what you know now, and begin soliciting feedback from others to move your idea to a completed mashup.

Once your project idea is submitted, you can register for the Hackathon by sending an email with the subject line: “Google Hackathon Registration” to net2@techsoup.org…

Click here for all the details.

A Hackathon at the Googleplex? 95% of my readers eyes just glazed over. 5% are in nirvana and just ran out the door to buy a case of Red Bull. 100% will be fascinated by results that show up at NetSquared in May.

This year’s contest will focus on Mashups for Good:

This year’s NetSquared Conference will bring together a unique mix of people from the public and private sectors to develop and release Mashups designed to provide deeper insight into the social issues affecting communities around the globe.

Those “people” are you — members of the NetSquared universe working on behalf of communities everywhere and the technical experts who care about these issues.

If we’re successful, we’ll learn something about cross-sector collaboration, meet new and interesting people, and build a unique gallery of Mashups that citizens, schools, and community-based groups everywhere can learn from, replicate, and build upon.

For more about Mashups, see Wikipedia’s definition.

For a better sense of what we mean, let’s take a look at a few of our favorite Mashups.

Go ahead, click on the examples below. Read the “about” pages to get a better sense of the project’s goal/mission, and how the site works. (Yes, this is kind of technical, but we’re going to help make sense of that. Enjoy!)

    * Maplight.org, a winning NetSquared project from last year, displays the link between money and politics by bringing together information about campaign contributions and legislative votes.

    * ChicagoCrimes.org is a browsable database of crimes in Chicago that lets users see information displayed on a map.

    * ActiveTrails shows visitors a list of active hiking and biking trails across the United States. Users play a big role in supplying information.

    * Tunisian Prison Map pulls from a variety of sources to locate the prisons on a map and links to videos and other information relating to the prisons.

On February 1, the Mashup Project Submission process for the NetSquared Mashup Challenge opens. Nonprofits and other social-change agents will be expressing their visions of how data can be recombined to advance social missions. NetSquared’s team will make sure that everyone gets the appropriate help they need to define their vision in a way that will be accessible and attractive to technical volunteers.

On March 14 at 5 PM, PST, the ability to publish a Project Submission will close.

03/17/08 – 03/21/08: Voting for the Mashup Project Challenge. Like last year, registered NetSquared users will be able to vote for their favorite Projects.

03/24/08: The top 20 Mashup Projects will be announced on March 24 and the winners will be invited to attend this year’s NetSquared conference in San Jose, CA, scheduled for 5/27 and 5/28. Each of the top 20 projects gets an allowance for travel (including airfare to and from the conference, along with a hotel room for two nights).

05/27/08 & 05/28/08: At the conference, Project Teams will have an opportunity to display and discuss their Mashups and attendees will vote to select the top three. All 20 projects at the conference will receive a share of $100,000 in prize money. The share will be determined by voting at the conference. Of course, there will be more legalese regarding the prize and its allocation after we open the application process on February 1, 2008.