UPDATE: NetSquared and UC Berkeley’s (UCB) Human Rights Center are pleased to announce the top three projects of the HRC Mobile Challenge. The winners, in order, are:

The Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley is pleased to announce the Human Rights Center Mobile Challenge.

Recent innovations in science and technology, especially mobile technologies, have provided human rights advocates, journalists, and scientists with new tools to expose war crimes and other serious violations of human rights and disseminate this information in real time throughout the world. Cell phones, combined with GPS, cameras, video, audio, and SMS are transforming the way the world understands and responds to emerging crises. Handheld data collection devices, such as PDAs, provide researchers with new ways of documenting mass violence and attitudes toward peace, justice, and social reconstruction in conflict zones.

How it Works

The Human Rights Center is sponsoring a challenge to encourage innovations for applying mobile technologies for human rights investigations and advocacy. Through a NetSquared Community vote, 10 finalists will be chosen. All 10 finalists will be invited to present their ideas at an international conference, "The Soul of the New Machine: Human Rights, Technology, and New Media," at UC Berkeley, May 4 and 5, 2009. A panel of judges, selected by the Human Rights Center, will choose three winners, to be announced at the conference. Winners will receive cash awards of $15,000 (first place), $10,000 (second place), and $5,000 (third place) to implement their ideas.  

To learn more about speakers and program topics for "The Soul of the New Machine: Human Rights, Technology, and New Media" visit the conference Web page.   To register for the conference visit the registration page.

Back to Top

How to Apply

Four Easy Steps to Participate:

• Register and/or Login
• Click on Username
• Click on "Submit a Project to the Project Gallery" under My Project Idea
• Select "HRC-UCB" from the Prize Tag menu located below Additional Cause Area Tags on the Submission Form

Please note that at this time our Submission Form does not support Safari or Chrome. Please use either Internet Explorer, Opera, or Firefox. If you'd like to use Safari or Chrome you will need to disable JavaScript in your browser in order to fill out the Submission Form, which may inadvertently also disable the editor. We are working on a solution and hope to have this fixed soon.

Back to Top

Rules and Guidelines

 Be sure to carefully review the   Rules and Guidelines.  

Back to Top

Key Dates

• February 2, 2009 - Submission Period Begins 11:00am PST
• March 20, 2009 - Submission Period Ends 3:00pm PDT
• March 23, 2009 - Community Voting Begins 11:00am PDT
• March 27, 2009 - Community Voting Closes 3:00pm PDT
• March 31, 2009 - Top Ten Finalists Announced 11:00am PDT
• May 4 - 5, 2009 - "The Soul of the New Machine: Human Rights, Technology, and New Media," an international conference at UC Berkeley

Back to Top

Project Gallery

To View Participants please check the HRC-UCB Project Gallery

Back to Top

FAQ

Be sure to read all FAQ

Back to Top

Judging Criteria

Be sure to read all Judging Criteria

Back to Top