One of the leading creative crowdsourcing platforms in Europe, 12Designer, recently announced that it would allow NGOs to receive free designs for their non-profit projects.

Several top co-creation companies have convened for the Conference on Social Product Development and Co-creation at the Local Motors microfactory in Phoenix, AZ to discuss different aspects of crowdsourcing, co-creation, and open innovation.

The Global Strategic Management Institute (GSMI) has just announced the first VentureEngine competition, a contest for enterprise software and technology startups to be held in San Francisco between the 13^th and 15^th of September. The competition will give seven finalists the opportunity to be present at the Enterprise Tomorrow Conference where they will compete for a cash prize.

Poptent, a popular crowdsourced video production company, today announced the opening of an office in Sao Paulo, Brazil to keep up with growing international demand for its services while simultaneously surpassing $2 million in cash payouts for completed video assignments.

The Crowdsortium Meetup, hosted by Appswell and uTest, is kicking off a newly formed, local chapter of the Crowdsortium, a group of crowdsourcing practitioners that have self-organized to advance the crowdsourcing movement through best practices, education, data collection and public dialog. The first event is scheduled to take place on June 21^st from 6:30-8:30pm at the Microsoft NERD in Cambridge, MA.

Buick and NCAA continued its partnership in making a positive difference to communities worldwide through Lacrosse the Nations, a non-profit organization empowering children in need through education, health and hope . The foundation was founded in part by  Greg Bice,  2004 Great Western Lacrosse League Player of the Year University of Ohio.

The social business software developer Jive has just announced The Jive Social Network, a program that creates a network of partners designed to make companies grow socially.

A survey, conducted by 12designer in its own community, has shown that for most of its users working in projects with a strong personal interest and practicing design skills in a professional environment are considered as important as the financial reward factor.

The Red Herring editorial team finalized a list of the 100 most innovative companies from a pool of hundreds across Europe, and included Microtask, a leading crowdsourcing company, among the winners. The award gives further acknowledgement to the increasing effectiveness of crowdsourcing. Red Herring’s editorial staff evaluated the complete list of companies on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technology innovation, management quality, strategy, and market penetration.

SportsNation by ESPN (the leader of sports news) has decided to give the 2011 NFL Draft Grades decision to the viewers and sports fans themselves. SportsNation hopes that this move will be provide a refreshing change to the usual talking of head grades. They think that it would be better also to get the people’s view this time around. The mock draft tends to be considered a senseless way to practice in grading a team’s draft before their players can even step out of the NFL field, but the fans and masses themselves are excited about the drafts.