You’ll note that I’m talking about smaller prizes, and how they’re most useful for getting recognized, and that’s what we used them for in that first 8 months at Ushahidi. Besides that I agree with Kevin on the competitions, so whether we took part in the Knight News Challenge a year later doesn’t change the points here – so not sure what you’re getting at actually.
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As an aside, while the Knight News Challenge does give out some awards upwards of $500k, most aren’t that large and we didn’t get that amount either as we were awarded $70k in 2009 and $240k in 2011. Interestingly, you’ll note that Kevin is also talking about winners who take away small amounts of money. For the 10 or so hours we put into the Knight News Challenge, I was fairly happy to get what we did get. So what’s the point here? In the prizes that have a larger amount of funds (let’s call that >$50k), if you win it’s worth the time. What Kevin’s getting at is that there are generally a lot of people who don’t win and then it’s a lot of wasted effort.
]]>There are other awards Ushahidi has competed for, whether it was nominated, or actively applied for, that were also competitions. Some some of the conclusions drawn here don’t seem to match up with reality (at not least in regards to the early days of Ushahidi).
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