From now until and August 15, 2009, Institute for the Future, Sun Microsystems, and Boing Boing invite young people from around the world, age 17 and under, to join us as we explore the frontiers of free and open innovation.

The Digital Open: An Innovation Expo for Global Youth seeks projects in a variety of areas ranging from the environment, art and music to the more traditional open source domains of software and hardware. We’re looking for new and fresh ideas that could make a real difference, whether to simplify a process or potentially have a huge global impact. In the spirit of collaboration that defines free and open technology movements, we encourage entrants to start from scratch or to improve upon existing innovations across eight broad categories.

We’re seeking Open Innovation Stewards in as many parts of the world as possible to help us make this a success. As a steward, you should be willing and able people to help mobilize, mentor, and inspire young innovators. You will become an integral part of our outreach effort in finding young people who have something to contribute. Our stewards should be experienced users of all major social networking tools, applications, and media and be confident working with a Drupal website. And, of course, you should have a passion for free and open technology innovation.

An Open Innovation Steward’s responsibilities will include:

* Translating our call for submissions, rules, and category descriptions into the local language(s) of your particular geographic area
* Recruit a minimum of 10 projects from young people between the ages 17 and under
* Promote project by:
1) distributing posters & postcards
2) giving talks in local junior high and high schools
3) reaching out to schools around your country/region
4) blogging about the project
5) reaching out to local publications or other prominent area bloggers
* Participation as judges of submissions
* Translating project descriptions as needed
* Verifying that a project chosen as a category winner meets our rules and requirements, and facilitate contact between the winner(s) and Boing Boing Video

Stewards who recruit the requested 10 projects from their regions will receive a cash reward of $500 USD. And as a thank you for helping out, all stewards will receive a schwag package that includes a Vy&Elle recycled billboard backpack or bag, a solar-powered flashlight, a t-shirt, and some other goodies. We’ll also include your bio on the Open Innovation Stewards page of digitalopen.org.

To apply, please visit http://digitalopen.org/apply/index.html.