Information Disorder Prize Competition

The Aspen Tech Policy Hub recently hosted a prize competition to fund projects that implement recommendations from the Aspen Institute’s Commission on Information Disorder to alleviate the crisis of mis- and disinformation in America. After an open application period, four semi-finalists were awarded $5,000 to develop prototypes of their proposals. At the live final pitch event on May 3, 2022, Alterea, Inc. was awarded the grand prize of $75,000 for “Agents of Influence:” a media literacy game for middle-and highschool students.

To learn more about the winning project, read the press release here. A recording of the final pitch event will also be available here soon.

Background

The Commission on Information Disorder was created to identify the most critical sources of mis- and disinformation and deliver a set of recommendations to help government, the private sector, and civil society respond to this challenge. Following months of internal discussion and consultation with experts, the Commission — comprising a diverse group representing academia, government, philanthropy, and nonprofit — released a report detailing 15 actionable recommendations to combat information disorder. 

The recommendations fall into 3 categories:

(1) Increasing Transparency and Understanding: Enhancing access to and inquiry in social media platforms’ practices, and more deeply examining the information environment and its interdependencies.

(2) Building Trust: Exploring the challenges the country faces in building and rebuilding trust in the institutions people count on to support informed public discourse and debate, and the role that access to reliable facts and content plays in those conversations.

(3) Reducing Harms: Mitigating the worst harms of mis- and disinformation, such as threats to public health and democratic participation, and the targeting of communities through hate speech and extremism.

Call for Projects

Project teams were invited to identify one or more particular recommendation from the Commission’s report, and propose a new, untested solution that would specifically help accomplish this goal. Teams were encouraged to take a creative approach to their deliverables; possible outputs could take the form of new technologies, policy proposals, inventions, research projects, and other innovative approaches to solving information disorder.

The prize competition was made possible by support from Craig Newmark Philanthropies and ex/ante (an initiative of Schmidt Futures).

Timeline

Nov 15 – Jan 10: Applications open for project proposals. 

Mid-Feb: Up to 5 semi-finalist teams are announced and awarded $5,000 each.

Mid-Feb – Mid-Apr: Semi-finalists develop initial prototypes of their proposed solutions.

May: Winner is awarded a $75,000 prize at a public event.

End of 2022: Winner provides final report on project.

Timeline

The Information Disorder Prize Competition has concluded. Subscribe to our mailing list here to be notified of future opportunities.