The five founding medical and educational institutions (Akron Children’s Hospital, Akron General Health System, Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy (NEOUCOM), Summa Health System, and The University of Akron) announced the BioInnovation Institute in Akron earlier this week along with a $20 million grant from Knight Foundation.

Knight CFO Juan Martinez helped put together the plan for the BioInnovation Institute:

Dr. W. Gerald Austen, chairman of Knight Foundation, said he hopes the Institute "will make Akron a world-class center for bioinnovation.”

Per William H. Considine, chairman of the BioInnovation Institute and president and chief executive officer of Akron Children’s Hospital, goals of the Institute include:

* Creating a nationally distinctive center of excellence at the intersection of biomaterials and medicine
* Translating leading edge research into life-saving medical devices
* Improving the health of the community
* Rapidly growing annual biomaterials-related research funding across the partners
* Increasing investment by national firms into regional biomedical start-ups and companies
* Increasing employment opportunities for those educated locally and drawing talent from around the globe
* Adding thousands of new jobs in the region by 2018.

For more, please see the press release and the BioInnovation Web site.

What do you think about the new BioInnovation Institute in Akron?

Editor's note: Senior Communications Officer and Secretary Larry Meyer details how Nancy Hicks Maynard was related to Knight Foundation's Journalism program and the Maynard Institute.

Nancy Hicks Maynard – a significant pioneer in journalism – was a long-time member of Knight Foundation’s Journalism Advisory Committee. Along with John Dotson Jr. – quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle obituary – Maynard did much to ensure that our journalism grantees valued diversity.

Nancy and her husband Robert Maynard owned and co-published the Oakland Tribune starting in 1983. They practiced the diversity in staffing and coverage they had been preaching earlier in their careers. The paper remains the only major metropolitan daily to have ever been black-owned.

Knight’s Eric Newton was the last managing editor under the Maynards. He recalled that Nancy Maynard successfully reoriented the circulation and advertising departments to focus on Oakland and Berkeley. As a result, circulation was growing in those urban areas even as financial problems forced a sale.

The Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, now based in Oakland, has prepared thousands of graduates to enter the nation’s newsrooms, including at the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. Nancy Maynard was the institute’s first president and served on its board until 2002.

What are your memories of her?

Knight Commission member danah boyd speaks on e-literacy at the Forum on Communication and Society at the Aspen Institute:

danah boyd on e-literacy from Knight Foundation on Vimeo.

This conference, sponsored by Knight, brings together some of the brightest minds in media. Below is a partial list of attendees.

• Madeleine Albright (former Secretary of State)
• Philip Bennett (Managing Editor of Washington Post Company)
• Reed Hundt (former FCC chair)
• Paula Kerger (President and CEO, PBS)
• Bill Kling (President and CEO American Public Media)
• Marissa Meyer (VP search and user experience Google)
• Craig Newmark (founder, Craigslist)
• Ted Olson (former Solicitor General)
• Andrew Prozes (CEO Nexis Lexis)
• Philip Rosedale (founder Second Life)
• Paul Sagan (CEO Akamai)
• Cyrus Krohn (runs e-campaign for McCain)

The Paris Hilton video response to the McCain ad definitely got everyone's attention here and has been discussed as one example for the changed nature of media in the 2008 election. I'm posting more detailed conference notes (in a stream-of-consciousness style too lengthy for this blog) at www.mytribune.com.

Here's a video of co-chairs Marissa Meyer and Ted Olson speaking about the goals of the Knight Commission on Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy. Mayer is vice president of search and user experience at Google. Olson is a former Solicitor General of the United States and a first amendment lawyer.

Marissa Mayer and Ted Olson on goals of Knight Commission from Knight Foundation on Vimeo.

What would you like to see the Knight Commission accomplish? Please leave a comment below.

Today, the fifteen members of the Knight Commission on Information Needs of a Community in a Democracy meet for the first time at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. to discuss democracy, economics, human behavior, and technology.

A joint project of Knight Foundation and the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program, the meeting will be webcast live from 10 am to 5 pm ET from the Commission Web site. Go to the webcast >

Yesterday, Michelle P B Ferrier of MyTopiaCafe wrote a post for Poynter Online's E-Media Tidbits about social capital and research she hopes the Commission will build on:

I hope that this commission examines the groundwork already done by the Saguaro Seminar folks, as well as research by the Saguaro short-form survey instruments could be adapted to be deployed on hyperlocal online communities and blogs to test whether the content, functions, design, architecture and personalities create a rich exchange -- and growth -- of social capital.

What do you think the Commission should discuss today on the topics of democracy, economics, human behavior, and technology?

(The next meeting, August 9th, will focus on journalism.)

Yesterday, fifteen members of the new Knight Commission on Information Needs of Community in Democracy were announced.

Focused on information flows, the Commission is a joint project of Knight Foundation and the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program, led by co-chairs Ted Olson, former Solicitor General of the United States, and Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Search Product and User Experience at Google. Peter Shane, a distinguished law professor at Ohio State University Law School, is the executive director. The other Commission members are listed here.

From the press release:

"Information is a core community need," said Walter Isaacson, president and CEO, The Aspen Institute. "We are fortunate to have such a diverse, open-minded and innovative group of individuals assembled to address this topic which is so important to our democracy going forward. We believe we can put the power of technology to use in strengthening community information, and through that information, communities themselves."

"The charge of the Commission is straightforward," says Alberto Ibargüen, president and CEO of Knight Foundation. "Articulate the information needs of communities in this democracy; determine where we are today; and propose public policy that will encourage market solutions."

On June 24th, the Commission will meet in the Knight Conference Center at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. to discuss "the integration of technology and the future of community information, economic sustainability, and the changing media landscape."

The meeting will be web cast live on the Commission’s Web site: www.knightcomm.org

What questions do you have for the Commission?