Nominations Closing Soon for $10,000 Pizzigati Prize

The Tides Foundation is accepting nominations for the annual Antonio Pizzigati Prize for Software in the Public Interest. The prize will award $10,000 to an open-source software developer whose work is helping nonprofits succeed. Nominations will be accepted through February 1, 2010. The winner will be announced this April at NTEN's 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference in Atlanta.

From the announcement:

"In today's digital age, nonprofits simply cannot thrive without access to imaginative software applications that speak directly to the work they do," notes Diana Chavez, the Tides Foundation philanthropic associate who coordinates the annual Pizzigati Prize competition. "The developers who create these applications, in the open-source spirit, make this access possible - and deserve an honor all their own."

Tides has hosted the Pizzigati Prize since its inception in 2006. Each year's competition welcomes the nominations of individuals who have developed an open-source software product that has demonstrated impressive value to at least one nonprofit and has the potential to offer value to multiple nonprofit organizations.

"Every day, in every community, nonprofits are counting on unsung open source heroes to help them build a better world," points out Katrin Verclas, a Pizzigati Prize judge and the co-founder of MobileActive.org, a global network of practitioners using mobile phones for social impact. "The Pizzigati Prize offers nonprofits a chance to show their thanks - and encourage future open-source heroics."

This past year's Pizzigati Prize winner, Darius Jazayeri, took the top honor for his innovative work on OpenMRS, an open-source software application that health clinics and hospitals on five continents are now using to keep, share, and track medical record data.

The first two Pizzigati Prizes made similarly vital contributions. The inaugural winner, George Hotelling, had fashioned an application that enables even the smallest nonprofits to run effective online advocacy campaigns. Barry Warsaw, the second winner, had served as the lead developer on GNU Mailman, an application nonprofits use to manage email discussions and e-newsletter lists.

The Pizzigati Prize honors the brief life of Tony Pizzigati, an early advocate of open-source computing. Born in 1971, Tony spent his college years at MIT, where he worked at the world-famous MIT Media Lab. Tony died in 1995, in an auto accident on his way to work in Silicon Valley.

Application information is online at pizzigatiprize.org. Get working!