Round 2 of voting is about to begin on our current series of Challenges running in the Balkans.  I’m happy to share the finalist gallery where you can click through the beta sites who are competing for $45k and mentorship we will award to 3 from each country.  

In total more than 30k unique individuals came through the site in the last 8 weeks, we accepted 70 ideas into the competition and, through code sprints, helped build what you see here.  

Something I love about this process is these ideas, having been through one round of voting, were vetted by the very folks we hope will use them.  Thousands of people in the target communities, driven their by their friends, came to read about the ideas and select the ones they are most likely to use.  

A bit of a popularity contest?  Sure.  But they had to vote for three, not just their friend’s.  And so, I hope, they thought for at least a second about someone’s social change agenda and supported it.  Better than not thinking at all…

Looking forward to welcoming the winners into our growing community of ReStarters (some of whom are profiled here) in the coming weeks.  Hats off to the finalists for taking the time and having the courage to lead their own revolutions.