edit: I wholeheartedly encourage every one of you with even the most half-baked idea to submit it to the open forum. There are too few organizations willing to front this kind of cash incentive to improve what is a very broken news system (and frankly this kind of innovation isn't going to be coming from within). It's old hat on hackernews, but our ideas aren't as valuable as we'd like to believe - share them, for the sake of a better informed-public.
Maybe those who are comfortable with sharing their ideas should do so here on HN, then submit as a team. (if they aren't busy with their current projects of course)
They're handing out cash for projects they want to be open-sourced. I think we as HN-users get the idea of community news fairly well - we just need some new ideas for tackling this locally.
I was cut from the winner's circle at the 11th hour last year according to one of the judges. This was not my first attempt. They do it a little differently each year, but if you have questions about my experience, holler.
edit: I wholeheartedly encourage every one of you with even the most half-baked idea to submit it to the open forum. There are too few organizations willing to front this kind of cash incentive to improve what is a very broken news system (and frankly this kind of innovation isn't going to be coming from within). It's old hat on hackernews, but our ideas aren't as valuable as we'd like to believe - share them, for the sake of a better informed-public.