GovLaunch – The Tag Challenge – Using Social Media to Solve Real-World Problems

Social media is a great thing. It helps us stay in touch with friends, spread the word about an upcoming party and so much more. The Tag-Challenge which will launch March 31 aims to find out just how much more social media can do in terms of solving real-life problems.

Using a grant from the State Department, The Tag-Challenge will attempt to harness the power of social media and crowdsourcing to see in networks like foursquare, facebook and twitter might be the next evolution in law enforcement. Listen to our interview on the DorobekINSIDER (you can subscribe for free to the whole show here) with Joshua DeLara the Project Organizer.
The Tag Challenge – Interview with Joshua DeLara by cdorobek

Of course agencies and law enforcement are already using social media (see to catch a predator) but the Tag-Challenge takes it a step further by transforming social networks into intelligence tools in order to track down a moving target.

Here’s an excerpt from there site:

Tag Challenge is a social gaming competition in which participants are invited to find “suspects” in a simulated law enforcement search in five different cities throughout North America and Europe on March 31, 2012. In order to win, a participant or team must be the first to successfully locate and photograph all volunteer suspects—the nefarious and elusive “Panther Five”—and submit verifiable photographs to the contest organizers.

Why it’s important: Basically if the Tag-Challenge works this could lead to breakthroughs in how law enforcement and government use social media in times of emergency and other critical situations.

The challenge will take place in Washington DC, New York City, London, Bratislava and Stockholm.