DARPA Red Balloon Challenge

Can you canvas an entire continent by mobilizing people on social media?

In 2009, DARPA launched the Network Challenge, to explore the roles the Internet and social networking play in the timely communication, wide-area team-building, and urgent mobilization required to solve broad-scope, time-critical problems. The challenge was to be the first to locate 10 moored, 8-foot, red weather balloons at 10 random locations in the continental United States. A team from MIT won by locating all balloons in under 9 hours. We helped analyze the factors behind the team's success. We then quantified the limits of this kind of mobilization, and introduced techniques for improving information verification in mass collaboration. 

In the early days of social media, this project tested the limits of the ability of social media to mobilize crowds to achieve unprecedented feats, such as canvasing an entire continent.