dropping knowledge encourages social change. dropping knowledge’s web platform invites the global public to ask and answer questions, exchange ideas and start initiatives. Through the use of imagery, multimedia-based campaigns and events, dropping knowledge functions as a social amplifier, offers uncensored knowledge and invites people to take responsible action within an international network.

The centerpiece of dropping knowledge is an open, internet dialog platform where the public can freely ask questions, discuss solutions and exchange viewpoints around the most comprehensive database of social topics ever compiled. Created by the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), the platform is structured around a database of 25,000 social topics and uses semantic search technology to link the evergrowing content.

Any user can answer any question, post new questions and share their thoughts and reflections on any topic under discussion. Since September 2005, dropping knowledge’s international, multimedia outreach campaign, “ask yourself”, has been empowering people all over the world to raise the questions about the topics that matter most to them. Since the campaign began, nearly 50,000 questions have been donated to dropping knowledge either in-person, online or by mobile phone. The fruits of the “ask yourself” campaign became apparent at the “Table of Free Voices” on September 9, 2006. dropping knowledge brought together 112 visionary thinkers from 60 countries to engage with 100 of the questions donated by the global public. Digital cameras recorded the individual answers of each participant, including filmmaker Wim Wenders, Oakland Institute founder Anuradha Mittal and humanrights activist Harry Wu. Video footage and transcripts from all of the 11,200 answers from this first-of-its-kind event can all be viewed on the dropping knowledge website.

CEO: Ralf Schmerberg (dropping knowledge e.V.); Creative Directors: Ralf Schmerberg, Andreas Läufer, Alex Marashian; Art Directors: Johannes Koblenz, Tina Hennefarth, Lena Mahr, Christine Müller; Editors: Joe Holden, Deborah Rogers, Valdis Wish; Films: Robert Kummer, Sandra Schaede; Communication: Astrid Falter, Daniel Kruse, Lucie Menz; Project Manager Web and Usability: Eric Mahleb; Programming: Sven Helemann, Marco Stahl, Jakob Uszkoreit, Nicolas Jaffe; Web development DFKI: Robert Barbey, Georg Demme, Witold Drozdzynski, Rainer Jochem, Bernd Kiefer, Volker Morbach, Christian Schreyer, Elizabeth de Sousa Pinto, Jörg Steffen, Hans Uszkoreit