The Human Interest Project:
Mission: The Human Interest Project (h.i.p) is an online multimedia platform designed to promote inspirational and transformative stories that honor those who change themselves and the world around them.Created in 2009 by photographer Ryan Bevans and writer Echo Brown, h.i.p features compelling stories that inspire and uplift. We believe the media has the power to plant seeds of hope in our national consciousness by spotlighting inspirational stories. Those stories influence the trajectory of humanity by encouraging future generations to act differently by aiming higher and thinking deeper.
We find content for our website by holding two contests a year. Every six months, we invite people from across the United States to submit a different topic. The current topic is below:
(1) Describe in detail an obstacle(s) or challenge(s) that you have successfully overcome in your life. (1,000 Words Maximum)
Feel free to use the following questions as guidelines: How did you overcome the challenge(s) or obstacle(s)? What was your motivation? What did you learn from the challenge(s) or obstacle(s)? What impact did the challenge(s) or obstacle(s) have on your life? Did anyone help you? What would you tell someone who is currently struggling to overcome challenge(s) or obstacle(s)?
(2) Or, do you know an inspirational person who did not give up when faced with adversity? What challenge(s) or obstacle(s) did he/she overcome? How did he/she respond to adversity? Tell us about him/her! (1,000 Words Maximum)
From the contestant pool, a panel of qualified judges selects one Grand Prize Winner and six winning runner-ups. We travel to all winners’ homes to interview them. We combine photography, audio, writing and/or video from the interviews into multimedia presentation about each winner. All multimedia presentation of the winners are featured on our website.