About GoMap Riga

GoMap Riga, first place winner of the 2010 Knight Foundation News Challenge, melds social media, phone book, and community map. Offering a live, interactive online map of your community, GoMap Riga's technology finds information on your locale from the Web and allows users to search and post local events, pictures and videos. Rather than creating another self-contained virtual community, founders Marcis Rubenis and Kristofs Blaus want GoMap to inspire residents to get involved in their towns and cities. Here's to creative implementation of civic values in the 21st century. Messrs Rubenis and Blaus were awarded $250,000 by the Knight Foundation for their GoMap project. The social entrepreneurs have been developing IT services for European NGOs, businesses, and governments, as well as lecturing and researching at various universities since 2006. The project will be launched in Riga, Latvia, and expanded to other cities accordingly.

Find out more by visiting www.gomap.org. 

Cofounder
GoMap Riga

Kristofs Blaus is a European entrepreneur managing various innovative businesses in the Baltics. Since 2007 his companies have successfully worked with teaching-aid software for mobile phones, advanced marketing solutions, payment-systems, and advanced IT services for clients from Finland, Estonia, and Latvia. He is founder and CEO of Creative Mobile Ltd.; Education Mobile Ltd.; Technology Mobile Ltd.; Politics Mobile Ltd.; and the founder of the Society Technologies Foundation. Blaus is recognized as one of the most successful innovative entrepreneurs in Latvia by the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia, the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, EIROPE INNOVA, and various other business institutions. He is also a 2010 Knight News Challenge winner.

Presented November 18, 2010