Knight News Challenge
A prestigious international media innovation contest that funds digital news experiments, has selected NextDrop as 2011 Challenge Winner. From a pool of 1,641 applicants in the contest, NextDrop was selected as one of 16 winning projects and awarded a $375,000 investment. Over the last 5 years, Knight News Challenge (KNC) has awarded $25 million to projects aiming to digitally inform and engage communities, thereby "advancing the future of news." More
Clinton Global Initiative University awarded the NextDrop team an outstanding commitment award for 2010 in the focus area of Public Health. The award included a grant of $6000. From CGI-U - "The CGI U Outstanding Commitment Awards, made possible by Walmart, are grants given to exceptional student Commitments to Action aimed at improving communities and lives around the world." More
Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society conducts an annual Big Ideas competition across four University of California campuses (Berkeley, Davis, Santa Cruz, Merced). The goal of the competition is to support multidisciplinary research projects that would demonstrate the capacity of IT to help address a major societal challenge. NextDrop was awarded the first place in 2010 which included a prize of $8000. More
School of Information at UC Berkeley. NextDrop was created in Prof. Tapan Parikh's Information and Communications Technologies for Social Enterprise course at the School of Information at UC Berkeley during Fall 2009. Student proposals for social enterprises were judged by Berkeley professors, social investors and representatives from the Gates and Grameen Foundations. NextDrop was awarded $5000 from a Gates Foundation grant.
GSM Association mWomen Programme, which addresses the key barriers to women's access to mobile phones conducts an annual BOP (base of the Pyramid) application challenge. NextDrop won the award in the feature phone category in 2011. The prize included $10,000, sponsored by Vodafone and funding to attend Mobile World Congress 2011. About the competition - "Launched by Hilary Clinton, Cherie Blair and the GSMA Development Fund, this challenge is sponsored by Vodafone and aims to provide fresh, original App solutions for women in developing countries living on under $2 a day. There are two $10,000 prizes, one for low-end devices and the other for smart phones." More
Global Social Venture Competition is the world's preeminent social business plan competition providing aspiring entrepreneurs with mentoring, exposure, and prize money to transform their business ideas into positive real-world impact. Founded by MBA students at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, the GSVC has evolved into a global network supported by an international community of volunteer judges, mentors and student organizers and a partnership of premier business schools in the US, Europe and Asia.
NextDrop was the grand prize winner for 2011 and was awarded $25,000.
Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition is a leading-edge international social venture plan competition, where interdisciplinary student teams from around the world propose creative, commercially viable businesses aimed at reducing poverty in the developing world.
NextDrop was awarded the Information & Communication Technology Prize ($10,000) for the year 2011.