Discussion of IA education

[Victor Lombardi <victor AT victorlombardi.com>]

A few months ago the AIfIA directors and advisors explored the idea of
creating a grant to encourage the progress of IA work. The recent
research/innovation discussion on mailing lists/blogs supported our 
feeling that a grant could be effective.

We are pleased to announce the formation of two Information Architecture
Progress Grants. The goal of the grants is to encourage and publicize
useful work that furthers our knowledge of information architecture. 
More
information and instructions on how to apply is here:
http://aifia.org/pg/ia_progress_grants.php

Philosophically we want to encourage the best ideas to blossom, and so 
the
grants are available for a wide variety of work -- not just original
research -- with the only restriction being the potential for practical
benefit to the field of information architecture.

With regard to administering this initiative, our approach is to keep 
the
program simple and later judge how effective it is at encouraging 
progress
in our field, making changes as appropriate. I hope in the end it will
benefit all of us.

Victor Lombardi
President, Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture