Ever since I had the pleasure of keynoting at Make Web Not War: For The Web in 2010, I've been eagerly awaiting the announcement of the 2011 edition, which was announced just a few days ago.

The title of this year's competition is Code Your Art Out, and the theme is that of “helping non-profits harness the power of technology in order to better serve its communities and members”. Oddly enough, this is a topic that I have discussed many times over the years with @katiestardust, and is thus very close to my heart.

The competition itself is rather simple: You register, think of an application that might be useful for non-profits (there's a list of ideas available if you're stuck), and the architect/code/design/innovate to your heart's content. As an added incentive, there's a non-negligible chunk of cash given out to the teams that place in first and second. The only technological requirements are that you need to use either the Windows Azure clould platform, or deploy on Windows IIS as your webserver.

While there's no requirement that the applications developed be made available under an open source license, I'm hopeful that many submissions will choose to go this route.

The use of modern web technology stacks and applications in most non-profits is woefully lacking, and the space is ripe for innovation. I'm very excited to see what applications people develop!