Group items tagged

The Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad and the U.S. Consulate General in Lahore announces an open competition for a cooperative agreement to establish an Academic Partnership in Gender and Development Studies between a U.S. educational institution and the Lahore College for Women University (LCWU) in Lahore, Pakistan. Accredited U.S. four-year colleges and universities meeting the provisions described in Internal Revenue Code section 26 USC 501(c)(3) may submit proposals to pursue institutional or departmental objectives in partnership with the Lahore College for Women University. Objectives detailed as priorities for this partnership include: collaborative research, curriculum development, long distance teaching via internet/DVC, professional development for faculty by US counterparts, abroad or locally, and faculty and student exchange. Faculty exchange programs ranging from a few weeks to a full semester, and shorter-term graduate student exchange programs, are preferred by the Lahore College for Women University. In addition, the university is interested in training and other assistance in developing multi-media awareness materials, conducting collaborative workshops, and leadership training for women.

America's Media Makers (AMM) grants support the following formats: interactive digital media; film and television projects; and radio projects. Interactive digital media may be websites, games, mobile applications, virtual environments, streaming video, podcasts, or other digital formats. Film and television projects may be single programs or a series addressing significant figures or events and drawing their content from humanities scholarship. The programs must be intended for national distribution. Radio projects may involve single programs, limited series, or segments within an ongoing program. They may also develop new humanities content to augment existing radio programming or add greater historical background or humanities analysis to the subjects of existing programs. They may be intended for regional or national distribution. NEH encourages projects that feature multiple formats to engage the public in the exploration of humanities ideas. Proposed projects might include complementary components that expand or deepen the audience's understanding of a subject: for example, museum exhibitions, book/film discussion programs, or other formats that engage audiences in new ways. America's Media Makers grants may not, however, be used to support programs' general operating costs. Development grants enable media producers to collaborate with scholars to develop humanities content and to prepare programs for production. Grants should result in a script or a design document and should also yield a detailed plan for outreach and public engagement in collaboration with a partner organization or organizations.

The Office of Citizen Exchanges of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA, or "Bureau") announces an open competition for the FY 2018 Global Media Makers (GMM) program. GMM will connect approximately 12 to 18 mid-career film and television professionals ("Fellows") from approximately six to eight countries with leading U.S. entertainment and media professionals ("Mentors"). These Mentors will facilitate behind-the-scenes access, bolster participants' technical skills and creative content development, and build the foundations for lasting professional networks. This program will focus on film and television projects in development and match participants' areas of interest with Mentor expertise. Fellows will travel to Los Angeles, California for a five-to-six week residency to work on projects with Mentors and receive state-of-the-art-training and industry access to support conceptual development of independent, authentic, and compelling content for distribution in their home countries. Following the residency, Mentors will travel to a select number of the Fellows' countries, when possible, for continued creative consultation and engagement. Both Mentors and Fellows will mutually benefit from the extended creative and professional development, which will promote dialogue and understanding and lead to greater creative and entrepreneurial connections.

America's Media Makers (AMM) grants support the following formats: * interactive digital media; * film and television projects; and * radio projects. Interactive digital media may be websites, games, mobile applications, virtual environments, streaming video, podcasts, or other digital formats. Film and television projects may be single programs or a series addressing significant figures or events and drawing their content from humanities scholarship. The programs must be intended for national distribution. Radio projects may involve single programs, limited series, or segments within an ongoing program. They may also develop new humanities content to augment existing radio programming or add greater historical background or humanities analysis to the subjects of existing programs. They may be intended for regional or national distribution. NEH encourages projects that feature multiple formats to engage the public in the exploration of humanities ideas. Proposed projects might include complementary components that expand or deepen the audience's understanding of a subject: for example, museum exhibitions, book/film discussion programs, or other formats that engage audiences in new ways. America's Media Makers grants may not, however, be used to support programs' general operating costs. Grant Categories Development grants enable media producers to collaborate with scholars to develop humanities content and to prepare programs for production. Grants should result in a script or a design document and should also yield a detailed plan for outreach and public engagement in collaboration with a partner organization or organizations. Production grants support the production and distribution of digital projects, films, television programs, radio programs, and related programs that promise to engage the public.

EmcArts, in partnership with the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, is accepting applications for Round 2 of the Innovation Lab for Arts Development Agencies, a sixteen-month program designed to help performing arts organizations and arts development agencies incubate and test strategies that address complex organizational challenges. The Innovation Lab provides organizations selected on a competitive basis with space, time, and resources to explore and accelerate the design and testing of new organizational change strategies. Strategies selected for inclusion must offer substantial leverage for new, effective practices in the performing arts field, though they do not necessarily have to be large in scope or cost.

Media Projects grants support the following formats: ¿ interactive digital media; ¿ film and television projects; and ¿ radio projects. Interactive digital media may be websites, games, mobile applications, virtual environments, streaming video, podcasts, or other digital formats. Film and television projects may be single programs or a series addressing significant figures, events, or ideas and drawing their content from humanities scholarship. The programs must be intended for national distribution. The program welcomes projects ranging in length from short-form to broadcast-length video. Radio projects may involve single programs, limited series, or segments within an ongoing program. They may also develop new humanities content to augment existing radio programming or add greater historical background or humanities analysis to the subjects of existing programs. They may be intended for regional or national distribution. NEH encourages projects that feature multiple formats to engage the public in the exploration of humanities ideas. Proposed projects might include complementary components that expand or deepen the audience¿s understanding of a subject: for example, museum exhibitions, book/film discussion programs, or other formats that engage audiences in new ways. Media Projects grants may not, however, be used to support programs¿ general operating costs. Grant Categories Development grants enable media producers to collaborate with scholars to develop humanities content and to prepare programs for production. Grants should result in a script or a design document and should also yield a detailed plan for outreach and public engagement in collaboration with a partner organization or organizations. Production grants support the production and distribution of digital projects, films, television programs, radio programs, and related programs that promise to engage the public.

Digital Projects for the Public grants support projects that significantly contribute to the public's engagement with the humanities. Digital platforms-such as websites, mobile applications and tours, interactive touch screens and kiosks, games, and virtual environments-can reach diverse audiences and bring the humanities to life for the American people. The program offers three levels of support for digital projects: grants for Discovery projects (early-stage planning work), Prototyping projects (proof-of-concept development work), and Production projects (end-stage production and distribution work). While projects can take many forms, shapes, and sizes, your request should be for an exclusively digital project or for a digital component of a larger project. All Digital Projects for the Public projects should * deepen public understanding of significant humanities stories and ideas; * incorporate sound humanities scholarship; * involve humanities scholars in all phases of development and production; * include appropriate digital media professionals; * reach a broad public through a realistic plan for development, marketing, and distribution; * create appealing digital formats for the general public; and * demonstrate the capacity to sustain themselves. All projects should demonstrate the potential to attract a broad, general, nonspecialist audience, either online or in person at venues such as museums, libraries or other cultural institutions. Applicants may also choose to identify particular communities and groups, including students, to whom a project may have particular appeal.

The Semantic Forensics (SemaFor) program will develop technologies to automatically detect, attribute, and characterize falsified multi-modal media assets (text, audio, image, video) to defend against large-scale, automated disinformation attacks. Statistical detection techniques have been successful, but media generation and manipulation technology is advancing rapidly. Purely statistical detection methods are quickly becoming insufficient for detecting falsified media assets. Detection techniques that rely on statistical fingerprints can often be fooled with limited additional resources (algorithm development, data, or compute). However, existing automated media generation and manipulation algorithms are heavily reliant on purely data driven approaches and are prone to making semantic errors. For example, GAN-generated faces may have semantic inconsistencies such as mismatched earrings. These semantic failures provide an opportunity for defenders to gain an asymmetric advantage. A comprehensive suite of semantic inconsistency detectors would dramatically increase the burden on media falsifiers, requiring the creators of falsified media to get every semantic detail correct, while defenders only need to find one, or a very few, inconsistencies. SemaFor seeks to develop innovative semantic technologies for analyzing media. Semantic detection algorithms will determine if media is generated or manipulated. Attribution algorithms will infer if media originates from a particular organization or individual. Characterization algorithms will reason about whether media was generated or manipulated for malicious purposes. These SemaFor technologies will help identify, deter, and understand adversary disinformation campaigns.

The Professional Development for Arts Educators (PDAE) program supports the implementation of high-quality model professional development programs in elementary and secondary education for music, dance, drama, media arts, or visual arts, including folk arts, for educators and other arts instructional staff of kindergarten through grade 12 (K-12) students in high-poverty schools. The purpose of this program is to strengthen standards-based arts education programs and to help ensure that all students meet challenging State academic content standards and challenging State student academic achievement standards in the arts. 

The Public Affairs Section of the Embassy of the United States of America in Islamabad, Pakistan, is pleased to announce an open competition for assistance awards through this Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO). PAS Islamabad invites all eligible organizations (see Section C for Eligibility Requirements) to submit proposals for a Grant or Cooperative Agreement to support activities focused on providing media training and professional development to professionals in the media field through one of the activity areas specified in this NOFO. PAS Islamabad invites proposals for projects that focus on one of the priority areas specified below. Applicants should pay close attention to the Public Affairs Section's goals, priority program areas, target audiences, and geographic locations when developing their proposals. Goals: The goals of this funding opportunity are to: 1. Strengthen People-to-People ties between the United States and Pakistan to increase professional and personal interaction between American media experts and local trainers with Pakistani journalists. 2. Expand Media Engagement by providing training to journalists in new or traditional forms of media that also support professional standards in journalism; increasing participants' knowledge and skills in producing and reporting quality news stories, exposing them to high professional standards, and empowering them to communicate news more effectively to the Pakistani public. Priority Program Areas: This NOFO aims to support the Department of State's initiatives to promote and strengthen the field of journalism and the accuracy of reporting in Pakistan in the areas of: 1. Social media training and digital security 2. Working with police and government 3. Resilience in harsh reporting conditions 4. Covering the 2016 U.S. presidential election

Our mission is to improve learning and enrichment opportunities for children. We do this by supporting and sharing effective ideas and practices in five major initiatives: School Leadership: Strengthening the leadership of principals and other key figures to improve student achievement. After School: Helping cities improve access to high-quality after-school programs through coordinating the work of government agencies, private funders, nonprofits and others groups. Summer and Expanded Learning: Supporting school district and other efforts to expand learning time during summer and the school day or year. Arts Education: Expanding arts learning opportunities for children and teens in school and beyond. Audience Development for the Arts: Supporting arts organizations to develop and test ideas for reaching new audiences so that many more people might enjoy the benefits of the arts.

The program seeks feature-length narrative and documentary submissions from established and emerging filmmakers whose team includes a U.S.-based director or screenwriter from a community that is statistically underrepresented in the film industry. Projects may be in any stage of development, from treatment/screenplay to post-production. Projects of any genre and/or budget range are eligible for a grant. Five narrative filmmakers and five documentary filmmakers will each receive a grant of $15,000 to use toward the development, production, post-production, or marketing of their film project. In addition, grantees will participate in networking events at the film festival and will receive year-round customized support from TFI in order to advance their projects through completion.

Named in honor of NED's principal founders, former president Ronald Reagan and the late congressman Dante Fascell, the Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program is funded by the U.S. Congress to enable democratic practitioners, scholars, and journalists from around the world to deepen their understanding of democracy and enhance their ability to promote democratic change. Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows maintain full-time residence at the International Forum for Democratic Studies, NED's research arm located in Washington, D.C. Dedicated to international exchange, the program offers a collegial environment for fellows to reflect on their experiences and consider lessons learned; conduct research and writing; develop contacts and exchange ideas with counterparts in Washington, D.C.; and build ties that contribute to the development of a global network of democracy advocates. The Forum hosts 16 to 20 Reagan-Fascell Fellows per year, divided into two five-month sessions: Fall Session: October 1 - February 28 Spring Session: March 1 - July 31 The program offers two tracks, a practitioner track and a scholarly track.

An enormous appetite for professional training exists among Pakistan's journalists. The industry has expanded rapidly in the past decade with the privatization of television but the training opportunities have not kept pace. Journalism education emphasizes the theoretical over the practical. The majority of Pakistan's media companies do not offer training to their staff and salaries are low, so journalists struggle to pay for training themselves. Thus the proposal to create a Center of Journalism Excellence will fill a major gap in providing much needed journalism skills training. The Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad announces an open competition for a cooperative agreement to establish a Center of Journalism Excellence (CJE) by a U.S. or foreign university housing a journalism school of international stature, or U.S. or foreign media development organization that offers in-service professional development training for journalists of the highest quality. Accredited U.S. four-year colleges and universities must meet the provisions described in Internal Revenue Code section 26 USC 501(c)(3). Strong preference will be given to applications in which the primary grantee is explicitly linked with a Pakistani partner institution(s) and there is a clear path to sustainability. Additional preference will be given to proposals that include cost sharing by a foundation or non-governmental organization.

Sundance Institute deepened its commitment to Native artists by launching a new Native Producers Fellowship, which identifies emerging Native producers and supports their professional development and the development of their projects. Responding to a crucial need to cultivate more Native American producers who can manage production; oversee packaging, financing, and distribution; and engage with the marketplace; this Initiative aims to support the sustainability and longevity of Native artists throughout their careers. Native Producing Fellowships will follow the model of Sundance Institute's Creative Producing Fellowships. The Initiative will identify two Fellows and support their attendance at the Sundance Film Festival in January, where they will participate in the Festival's Native Forum, and at Sundance Institute's Creative Producing Summit in the summer. Native Producing Fellows will be considered for ongoing support and opportunities within the Institute's Creative Producing Initiative and Creative Producers Lab after they participate in the Native Program's Producers Fellowship.

With this solicitation, NIJ seeks proposals for funding for technology research and development to develop:* New, innovative means to speed the processing of large-capacity digital media in a forensically sound manner that preserves the probative value of the evidence that the media may contain.* More efficient means to store the large volumes of information seized as digital evidence while preserving the probative value of that evidence.

The University of Kentucky's College of Arts and Sciences and Proposal Development Office are pleased to host a National Endowment for the Humanities regional proposal development workshop on March 2-3, 2015 in the Student Center Theater.  The program is open to the academic community and post-secondary institutions throughout the region and is an excellent opportunity to learn more about federal support for the humanities.

Support Shared Security - Projects for consideration in this category could/should support and advance cooperation between the United States and Turkey on defeating ISIS/DAESH and other extremist groups; projects in Turkey that support advancing stability in Syria; all facets of counterterrorism efforts; and transnational crime. Also, projects that support and advance cooperation between the United States and Turkey in NATO and other multilateral security organizations. Strengthen Economic Prosperity: Promoting Innovation and Fostering Entrepreneurship - Depending on the level of entrepreneurial opportunity and ability in the targeted region(s) for the activity, proposals here could include trainings to introduce the concept and principles of entrepreneurship, promote networking and mentorship opportunities, provide small-and-medium enterprise (SME) development planning, teach marketing and outreach techniques, foster research and development/innovation, etc. Reinforce Democratic Values: Media - Proposals should support journalists and/or citizen journalists through trainings or activities to bolster media literacy, investigative journalism, social media/internet publishing, research and fact checking, documentary filmmaking, visual or other storytelling, etc.

This project will provide two separate streams of English training, one for journalists and one for export-oriented business professionals, for the purpose of giving both audiences the necessary language skills to communicate more effectively. For journalists, the project will enable participants to more effectively research and develop stories in English, and to represent current events in Afghanistan to a larger international audience. For export-oriented business professionals, the course will enhance their ability to engage in relationship-building and transactions with other English speakers, with the intent of boosting international trade. The successful applicant is expected to administer and conduct English courses for each group, separately, over a 12-month period to at least 80 participants for each of the two separate streams. The courses will include topics and vocabulary relevant to each audience, and will improve participants' English ability in reading, listening, speaking, and writing. To target the skills development of women, gender balance among participants will be taken into consideration in the selection process.

Pursuant to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended, the United States Government, as represented by the U.S. Agency for International Development Mission in the Philippines (USAID/Philippines), invites applications for funding from all eligible organizations [1] to carry out activities that will enhance democratic governance in the Philippines by advancing media capacity and independence. This posting serves as an Addendum (#1) to the Initiatives for Democracy, Annual Program Statement (APS) 72049219APS00001. The purpose of this Addendum #1 is to disseminate information to prospective Applicants so they can develop and submit concept papers and potentially full applications for USAID/Philippine funding. This document describes the desired objectives and types of activities that can be considered for funding.