Contact: Press Office, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), 202-712-4320; Public Information: 202-712-4810

WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 /Standard Newswire/ -- The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) launched the 2008 USAID Development 2.0 Challenge, the agency's first open source challenge to spur innovation from new actors, on Monday. The Development 2.0 Challenge signals that USAID is responding to a shifting business and technology culture that goes by many names, including Web 2.0, inventive economics, wikinomics, or crowdsourcing. Just as online communities have changed the way business is done, USAID's open call for technology solutions seeks to improve the way international development is done.

Through the Development 2.0 Challenge, USAID is opening up to inventive ideas. The Challenge seeks to tap non-traditional sources, such as students, budding entrepreneurs, and other innovators to explore the potential of mobile technology applications. USAID challenges innovators everywhere to apply an innovative mobile technology solution for maximum development reach and impact in areas such as health, banking, education, agricultural trade, or other pressing development issues.

"This Challenge is unlike the older generation of competitions," says USAID Administrator Henrietta H. Fore. "It is more of a competition-cum-collaboration --a continuous, online set of brainstorming to combine, test, and refine innovative approaches to specific problems."

The Challenge is an initiative of the Global Development Commons (GDC), which seeks to make development information available to all people. Global mobile phone penetration has now topped 50 percent, with four billion subscribers, compared to 10 percent for personal computers. The GDC seeks to apply these mobile technologies to exchange key information among people in developing countries.

USAID will reward the winning innovation with a grant of up to $10,000. Innovators can find out more and apply to the Development 2.0 Challenge at www.netsquared.org/usaid. Submissions will be accepted from October 13 through December 5, 2008 and Administrator Fore will award the winners in January 2009.

An Open Source Challenge
The USAID Development 2.0 Challenge harnesses Web 2.0 social networking to select the best project submitted. This crowdsourcing effort encourages individuals and organizations to submit their ideas or to offer feedback toward the best solutions. Once the submission process closes, an online community vote will select the top 15 projects. Those projects will then go in front of a panel of USAID-selected judges who will pick the winner and two runners-up.

In addition to competing for a grant for up to $10,000, applicants from around the world compete to gain visibility for their ideas, constructive feedback through online community voting, and the chance to present before senior officials at USAID and potential investors. For more information about USAID and to join the Global Development Commons, visit www.usaid.gov/commons.