Net Squared Sponsors Mashup Challenge

NetSquared hosts a very formidable goal; that being to encourage people to share their projects with the broader community and to provide these projects with hands on help and concrete resources.

Every year NetSquared sponsors their own Mashup challenge in order to facilitate this goal, and in addition, they work with a variety of partners to create more opportunities for great projects to be recognized. NetSquared has mapped out a list of challenges and competitions for the NetSquared community.

Wikipedia defines mashup as a web application that combines data from more than one source into a single integrated tool; an example is the use of cartographic data from Google Maps to add location information to real-estate data, thereby creating a new and distinct web service that was not originally provided by either source. Mashups should be differentiated from simple embedding of data from another site to form compound documents. A site that allows a user to embed a Youtube video for instance, is not a mashup site. The site should itself access 3rd party data using an API, and process that data in some way to increase its value to the sites’s users.

NetSquared’s Challenge was created to bring together a unique mix of people from the public and private sectors to develop and release Mashups designed to provide deeper insight into the social issues affecting communities around the globe. Basically, the Challenge asks “How would you mashup the Network for Good donation processing service with other services to make it easier for nonprofits to raise money online? We’re working with Network for Good, the Case Foundation, and the NetSquared community to enhance the online donation process.”

The Mashup Challenge has gone through the first phase and this year’s 21 Featured Projects. have been selected. If you have a project in here, we encourage you to keep your project information up to date. If you are new to this, please feel free to add your project. To submit a new idea to the Project Gallery please register and log in. Note that while you can sort the Mashup projects by date, project name, cause area, comments and stars, the project list appears in random order upon login.

Over the coming weeks and months, we will be scheduling hack days, showing the projects to our various corporate partners like our sponsors and our partners at TechSoup Stock, and we may even have other opportunities to provide direct financial support in the future.

Check out the Awards and Challenges Overview page to see all challenges and awards available to the NetSquared community.