University of Denver: The University of Denver’s Project X-ITE announced today it is teaming with the Gates Family Foundation, the Boston Consulting Group and community leaders to develop a business plan and prototype for a sustainable, scalable independent statewide digital news medium for Colorado.

Spurred in part by the continued decline of daily newspapers, the project’s participants will use an Open Innovation process to engage a broad range of community members through the summer. By September, the project aims to produce and publicize a viable business plan and prototype that reflects market opportunities and community needs.

“There have been numerous conversations throughout the community over the last several months. It is clear that there is a belief that a robust independent journalistic presence is important to the health of our community,” says JB Holston, dean of the Daniel Felix Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Denver. “Our goal is to add to the discussion about the future of journalism in Denver and Colorado and create more options for how Coloradans obtain news.”

Over the course of the next three months, a broad range of community members, including current and former journalists, will participate in what is known as an “Open Innovation” process, engaging in highly agile, quickly iterative processes to consider and develop prototypes and to test new approaches for digital journalism.

“The project is designed to complement and strengthen existing initiatives to develop innovative ways to deliver important civic and investigative news content to the public,” Holston says. “The participants will ‘open source’ what is learned, so everyone in the community can benefit from the findings.”

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