Knight Center wins President’s Innovation Award

The Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication has been awarded the 2010 President’s Award for Innovation. Arizona State University gives the awards each year to recognize innovative and multidisciplinary programs and projects.

"The Knight Center gives our students creative and entrepreneurial skills to help lead the changing media industry and provide a setting in which they can invent their own innovative digital products,” said ASU President Michael M. Crow.

Crow said the Knight Center helps position ASU as a national leader in entrepreneurship and innovation. Last year, ASU ranked No. 2 in the Global Student Entrepreneurship annual rankings for the number of student ventures created, about half of which originated from the Knight Center.

Funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the Knight Center brings together students from various disciplines throughout ASU to develop their own digital media products and services.

The program mixes classroom instruction, mentoring and hands-on product development with exposure to notable speakers and successful role models and the latest issues in media and technology.

The students work under the direction of Knight Center Director Dan Gillmor, one of the world’s leading experts in digital media, and Entrepreneur-in-Residence CJ Cornell, a venture adviser with experience in Silicon Valley and Los Angeles.

“The center teaches students how to innovate and think and act like entrepreneurs – something that’s more important than ever in a rapidly changing digital media world,” said Cronkite Dean Christopher Callahan. “Under Dan’s and CJ’s leadership, students are developing projects that we think will help shape the media of the future.”

Since it was established in 2008, more than 20 projects or companies have emerged from the center. Students have not only launched compelling ventures but have successfully garnered funding from grants, venture capital and other sources. CityCircles, for example, is a stop-by-stop information platform for the Phoenix-area light rail community created by two students that won a $100,000 Knight Challenge grant last year. Other examples of projects that have been developed at the center can be found at knightcenter.asu.edu.

Team members:
Dan Gillmor, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication
CJ Cornell, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Chris Callahan, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication