Africa's largest umbrella association of media owners and c-level executives, AMI, is launching an annual $1m innovation fund to spur experimentation and digital adaption in newsrooms. The initiative is supported by the Omidyar Network, Google, the Knight Foundation, the Gates Foundation, WAN-IFRA, the US State Dept., and the Konrad Adenhauer Stiftung (KAS).

2. $1 Million in Prizes An annual pan-African innovation competition to encourage digital experimentation . Based on proven models , with industry leaders as funding & capacity partners. Designed to nurture an ‘innovation ecosystem ’ for low-cost, low-risk experimentation with rapid iteration / prototyping.

3. Tangible Solutions Solutions to real-world challenges faced by African legacy media. Wide focus that embraces everything from audience engagement & content distribution, to new revenue models, workflow systems, etc. Preference for scalable solutions that leverage mass media technologies .

4. More Than Money Prizes range from $12,500 up to $100,000 in seed funding . Additional one-on-one business mentorship to build sustainable revenue models. Additional engineering / incubation support. Additional marketing / rollout support .

5. Timelines & Processes Industry will help shape themes / categories by Q1 2012. Deadline for Applications Q2 2012. Two-phase judging process with finalists announced Q3 2012. Winners announced at AMLF 2012.

6. Development Phase Cash prizes transferred in tranches , as delivery benchmarks achieved. Encouraged to beta-test in AMI member newsrooms. International roadshow + African Symposium to showcase working prototypes in 2013.

7. Building Community Hacks/Hackers networks to build communities of journalism-focused programmers / developers. Quarterly mini-challenges for proof-of-concept experimentation + team-building . Tackle topic-based challenges via hackathons , experiment with data journalism , transfer technical skills , build newsroom tools .

8. Pilot Projects Assist AMI partner media to run larger newsroom experiments . Connect innovators / entrepreneurs with tech skills and/or solutions to newsrooms. Help newsrooms scale homegrown solutions. Help newsrooms localise global solutions.

9. Share Knowledge Success good – but failure also instructive , as long as fail fast. Document the successes / failures, in tech detail, so we can avoid repeatedly reinventing the wheel. Repository for experiments, code, case studies, tools, and expertise.

10. www.africannewschallenge.org www.africanmediainitiative.org