The David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute at the School of Engineering at Stanford and Columbia Journalism School is delighted to announce its 2020-2021 Magic Grant program. Proposals are due April 10, 2020.
Each year, the Brown Institute awards close to $1M in grants and fellowships to foster new tools and modes of expression, and to create stories that escape the bounds of page and screen. We are committed to radical experimentation with the potential to define new priorities and practices for both engineering and journalism. The “Magic Grant” program provides year-long funding awards of up to $150,000 ($300,000 for teams with members of both the Columbia and Stanford communities).
To date, the Institute has funded the creation of data sets and new database technologies to support journalism (Data Share, Democracy Fighters), editing tools that simplify audio and video production (RoughCut, Synthesizing Novel Video from GANS), advances in artificial intelligence and Machine Learning (Learning to Engage, Visual Genome), and significant stories exploring new modes of expression through data visualization and immersion (We Can, 1000Cut).
Over the coming weeks, we will be publishing short features on our blog (brown.columbia.edu) about previous grants to give you a sense of the variety of projects we fund. We have also prepared an extensive FAQ page and Eligibility page to help answer common questions you might have. In addition, the Brown Institute will hold two virtual information sessions for Columbia (March 10 at 4:30PM / March 26 at 4:30PM) and one virtual information session at Stanford (March 12 at 4:30pm). Links for the Information Sessions below. Please write browninstitute@columbia.edu with any questions you might have.
Columbia – Tuesday, March 10 at 4:30PM (zoom.us/j/900839288)
Stanford – Thursday, March 12 at 4:30PM (https://stanford.zoom.us/j/249681708)
Columbia – Thursday, March 26 at 4:30PM (zoom.us/j/861228398)