Competition gets to the heart of the internet

Long ago, in the prehistoric mists of the Arpanet age, the Internet was a non-profit organization, full or .orgs and .edus with nary a .com to be seen.

Those days are gone now that telcos and vendors have spent trillions making the Internet indispensable to industry. But cash-strapped non-profits can benefit from technology, too, and one telecom force is trying to make sure they have the resources to do so.

The Ericsson Internet Community Award will make more than $250,000 in cash and in-kind Web development services available to non-profit organizations that present the most creative ideas for tapping into the community-building power of the Internet.

The campaign began last week and runs through March 31. All proposals will be screened by an advisory board of figures from the non-profit sector.

Twenty or so finalists will be assessed by a panel of judges from the new media and commercial Internet industries, co-chaired by Sven-Christer Nilsson, CEO of LM Ericsson, and Tripod CEO Bo Peabody.

Up to five organizations will be chosen in May. But instead of a check, they will get the donated talents of Web development companies around the world and the equipment needed to make their project happen.

Donna Campbell directs Ericsson's CyberLab East in New York, a technology incubator that has partnered with New York Internet investors to produce applications and services for finance, media, education and health care. She and her group will manage the implementation of the winning projects.

"I've worked in both the non-profit and new media industries for a long time, so I know it's difficult for non-profit organizations to take advantage of all the things happening in the world of technology," Campbell says. "But those are the very tools that can jump-start their efforts and help them serve their communities better. We want to help non-profits realize their missions through technology."

Those charitable applications can involve out-front initiatives that bring an organization's message to the public, or they can be back-room ideas for handling support functions such as solicitation, reporting and database management more efficiently. For example, a cooperative of artisans in the Third World may want to sell their handicrafts themselves. CyberLab and the volunteer Web developers would help them get on-line, set up a Web site and implement the transaction system to let them sell to the world.

The Internet is as important to non-profit organizations as it is to public corporations, said Tim Mills-Groninger, associate executive director of the Information Technology Resource Center and a member of the Erica advisory council. "If the non-profit sector were an economy, it would be the seventh largest in the world," he said. ITRC is a non-profit organization that advises others on the effective use of technology, something Mills-Groninger says is just beginning to catch on.

"There are great examples of really superior information management in the non-profit sector, but there still tend to be remnants of that 'poor relation' approach that says, 'We can't afford to do a good job, commit the correct resources, including hiring and paying the right staff,'" he says. "When I'm asked who my main competitors are, I say, 'sloth and ignorance.'"

Campbell pointed out that applications from groups without a Web presence will be weighted, as will those in which the scope of the project is relatively modest but the community impact is huge. "One of the most unusual things about this program is that it focuses on ideas about new technology," she says. "It's not about recognition for something that already exists-it's about creating something new."

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