Teams to present to judges from the Institute’s Commission on Information Disorder on May 3
Contact:
Betsy Cooper
Director
Aspen Tech Policy Hub
Betsy.Cooper@aspeninstitute.org
San Francisco, California, April 14, 2022 — The Aspen Tech Policy Hub today announces the four semi-finalist teams of the Information Disorder Prize Competition.
The prize competition, announced in November, seeks to fund unique and innovative projects that make meaningful progress towards ending information disorder, in direct connection to one or more of the Aspen Institute’s Commission on Information Disorder’s 15 recommendations for government, industry, and civil society.
The semi-finalist teams for the prize competition are:
- Alterea, Inc.: “Agents of Influence,” a spy-themed media literacy video game for middle- and high-school students. Team members: Anahita Dalmia, Jasper McEvoy, Alex Walter
- RadiTube: “RadiTube: Narrative Detection and Analysis for YouTube,” an automatic detection and tracing tool for harmful narratives spread through YouTube videos. Team members: Cameron Ballard, Bernhard Lenger, Erik Van Zummeren
- Ranking Digital Rights at New America: “Treating Information Disorder by Making Online Ads Accountable,” a set of sample policies to make the online ad economy more transparent and accountable. Team members: Nathalie Maréchal, Anna Lee Nabors, Zak Rogoff, Alex Rochefort
- Observatory on Social Media at Indiana University: “Detection Tool for Misinformation Superspreaders,” an open-source public tool to identify misinformation superspreaders. Team members: Filippo Menczer, Rachith Aiyappa, John Bryden, Matt DeVerna
“We were impressed by the creativity and thoughtfulness of the solutions proposed in the applications we received,” said Betsy Cooper, Aspen Tech Policy Hub founding director. “Each of these projects presents a specific way to combat mis- and disinformation, which is sorely needed to help government, the private sector, and civil society respond to this crisis.”
Each semi-finalist team has been awarded $5,000 to develop a prototype of its project to present at a virtual pitch final event, 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. PT/1:30 – 3:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday, May 3, 2022. Projects will be judged by members of the the Commission, including:
- Chris Krebs, Co-Chair, Aspen Commission on Information Disorder, Founding Director, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; US Department of Homeland Security; Senior Newmark Fellow in Cybersecurity Policy, Aspen Digital; Co-Founder, Krebs Stamos Group
- Amanda Zamora, Commissioner, Aspen Commission on Information Disorder, Co-Founder & Publisher, The 19th
- Deb Roy, Commissioner, Aspen Commission on Information Disorder, Professor MIT, Director, MIT Center for Constructive Communication, Co-Founder & Chair, Cortico
Following the project presentations, the judges will select one grand winner to be awarded a $75,000 grand prize to execute on its proposed idea.
The Information Disorder Prize Competition is supported by Craig Newmark Philanthropies and ex/ante (an initiative of Schmidt Futures).
For more information on the virtual pitch event and to register, visit here.
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The Aspen Tech Policy Hub is a West Coast policy incubator, training a new generation of tech policy entrepreneurs. The Hub takes tech experts, teaches them the policy process through fellowship and training programs, and encourages them to develop outside-the-box solutions to society’s problems. It models itself after tech incubators like Y Combinator, but trains new policy thinkers and focuses on the impact of their ideas. For more information, please visit https://www.aspentechpolicyhub.org. The Aspen Tech Policy Hub is an initiative of Aspen Digital.