Young Innovators and the Digital Democracy Contest

(This is a re-post of Elizabeth Gardner's article featured in Purdue News.)

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A team of three Purdue University students led by a 2008 graduate won the young innovator division of the MacArthur Foundation's Digital Media and Learning Competition.

The team, which proposed a free Web-based contest to help high school government teachers educate students, was awarded $9,000 as one of five winning projects.

In the project, called the Digital Democracy Contest, students will compete in teams to answer questions using U.S. government Web sites.

Daniel Scott Poynter, the Purdue philosophy department alumnus who led the team, said there is great potential to increase civic engagement through the information available online.

"We want to help students benefit from new government transparency efforts," Poynter said. "Information overload is real, and though it can cripple, it can also empower students. We are looking for high school government teachers to pilot the contest this fall."

The team includes junior in computer science George Tebbetts, sophomore in computer science John Bohlmann and junior in electrical and computer engineering technology Amit Pahwa.

In 2007 the team created a similar collegiate-level contest called the Digital Literacy Contest, in which participants compete to find and evaluate information online. The contest has been used by nine universities and continues to expand, Poynter said.

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