Blog

It seems like only yesterday we finished packing up the set for the awards ceremony at the 6th annual World Challenge Awards.

It's a mark of how popular the competition has grown that the work here in the production office never seems to end.

All year round we receive hundreds of requests from people wanting information about upcoming and previous series or hoping to be put in touch with the projects we've featured since the first series in 2005.

Now, with the nomination period set to start again on the 28th of March, it's time to start the promotion of the project once again.

Experience has shown that as soon as the nomination page on the website goes live we'll be flooded with applications to win the prize money and appear in the special series shown to BBC World News' potential audience in 300 million TV homes.

This year promises to be one of the most exciting yet, with several new initiatives in the pipeline.

We'll be building on the success of the Down to Business spin-off programmes from last year. Presenter and sustainability expert Leo Johnson will be visiting two social firms to offer expert advice on how they can grow their business.

There'll be a new Down to Business mini-site where you'll be able to keep up to date with the big news stories of the day in social entrepreneurship and hear about developments in the competition.

We want the mini-site to be a valuable resource for social entrepreneurs that they bookmark online and keep coming back to. The new-look blog section will be featuring guest blogs from the great and the good in social enterprise, as well as the fantastic film-makers blogs from our producers out in the field.

To keep it interesting and informative we'll be putting as much video content as we can up, including a new round-table business discussion with Leo and other experts. We want to use this to focus in much more detail about the issues that come in the Down to Business shows.

The new look mini-site and increased interactivity of this year's show really sets it apart from both the standard sustainability awards and online social business news sites.

Different from other awards because it brings the nominators and voters directly into the film-making process, giving real life to the projects it features.

And different from the other news sites online because it builds on the experiences and lessons of a proven community of entrepreneurs and companies operating around the world in every conceivable sector.

We'll be blogging a lot over the coming months to let you know how the mini-site and series are shaping up, so make sure you bookmark us here and keep following. We welcome any suggestions you might have for us by email on worldchallengeteam@bbc.com.