Tag Archives: Google News

More than EUR 21 million in funding from Round 3 of the Digital News Initiative Fund

Two years ago, we established the Digital News Initiative (DNI), a partnership between Google and news publishers in Europe to support high-quality journalism through technology and innovation. As well as investing in product development, research and training, we also launched the DNI Innovation Fund, committing €150 million to innovation projects across the European news industry. Today, we’re announcing the recipients of our third round of funding, with 107 projects in 27 countries being offered funding worth €21,968,154 in total.

In this third round, we received more than 988 project submissions from 27 countries. Of the 107 projects funded today, 49 are prototypes (early stage projects requiring up to €50k of funding), 31 are medium-sized projects (requiring up to €300k of funding) and 27 are large projects (requiring up to €1m of funding).  

Innovation Fund - Round 3

What’s new in this round? First and foremost,there is growing interest in fact checking experiments, with 29 percent more applications in that field in comparison to the previous rounds. We’ve also seen a rise in projects including artificial intelligence (+23 percent more applications than last round), investigative reporting (+20 percent more) and immersive approaches through virtual and augmented reality (+20 percent more). Last but not least, this round was also about collaboration between organisations and across borders, with 47 percent of all the applications selected for funding having a collaborative dimension. Here’s a sample of some of the projects funded in this round:

[Prototype] The Open State Foundation - Netherlands

The Open State Foundation promotes transparency through the use of open data and innovative and creative applications. It will receive €50k to prototype a real-time database of what politicians say and do, drawn from a wide range of sources. The goal is to increase transparency and give journalists better access to political information, in particular on niche topics, local politics, backbenchers and alternative local parties.

[Medium] Publico.es - Spain

With its Transparent Journalism Tool (TJ Tool) and funding of €208,500 from the DNI Innovation Fund, Publico.es will offer an open source application that gives readers behind-the-scenes access citizens to the newspaper’s editorial process, so they can trace the newsgathering and editing work in a radically transparent way. It will also provide the publisher with data about the cost of producing each story, with a view to monetizing more content via formats like micropayments.  

[Large] Deutsche Welle - Germany

Deutsche Welle reports in 30 languages and reaches more than 135 million listeners around the world. Doing so cost-effectively is a major challenge. But with €437,500 from the DNI Innovation Fund, the German public broadcaster is building “news.bridge - Bridge the Language Barrier for News” a platform that integrates and enhances a mix of off-the-shelf tools for automated transcription, translation, voiceover and summarising of video and audio content in virtually any language.

[Large] WikiTribune - UK

WikiTribune, a news platform launched by Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, has been awarded €385,000 to scale its operations. It seeks to counter the proliferation of low quality news sources with fact-based, transparently sourced articles that are written by professional journalists and verified and improved by a community of volunteers. Like Wikipedia, it’s free, and ad free, but funded by supporters.

Since February 2016, we’ve evaluated more than 3,000 applications, carried out 748 interviews with project leaders, and offered 359 recipients in 29 countries a total of €73m. To mark this milestone, we’re hosting our first DNI Innovation Fund event today in Amsterdam, where 24 project teams that received funding in Round 1 or 2 will share details of their work and results to date.


We’re also publishing the Fund’s first annual report, which outlines the early impact of the projects funded so far. From startups to large newsrooms, at national and local news outlets, DNI-funded projects are embracing the opportunities of big data, blockchain technology and machine learning, evolving and reinventing everything from subscriptions and fact checking to video production and reader engagement.  These projects are helping shape the future of high-quality journalism—and some of them are already directly benefiting the European public today too.
Digital News Initiative Fund: Experiment, Innovate, Invent

Finally, we’re excited to announce that the application window for Round 4 of the DNI Innovation Fund will open in early September and will run for 30 days. Based on feedback from Round 3, we’ll be making a few changes to the application process, and we’ll be posting details to the digitalnewsinitiative.com website in the coming weeks.

More than EUR 21 million in funding from Round 3 of the Digital News Initiative Fund

Two years ago, we established the Digital News Initiative (DNI), a partnership between Google and news publishers in Europe to support high-quality journalism through technology and innovation. As well as investing in product development, research and training, we also launched the DNI Innovation Fund, committing €150 million to innovation projects across the European news industry. Today, we’re announcing the recipients of our third round of funding, with 107 projects in 27 countries being offered funding worth €21,968,154 in total.

In this third round, we received more than 988 project submissions from 27 countries. Of the 107 projects funded today, 49 are prototypes (early stage projects requiring up to €50k of funding), 31 are medium-sized projects (requiring up to €300k of funding) and 27 are large projects (requiring up to €1m of funding).  

Innovation Fund - Round 3

What’s new in this round? First and foremost,there is growing interest in fact checking experiments, with 29 percent more applications in that field in comparison to the previous rounds. We’ve also seen a rise in projects including artificial intelligence (+23 percent more applications than last round), investigative reporting (+20 percent more) and immersive approaches through virtual and augmented reality (+20 percent more). Last but not least, this round was also about collaboration between organisations and across borders, with 47 percent of all the applications selected for funding having a collaborative dimension. Here’s a sample of some of the projects funded in this round:

[Prototype] The Open State Foundation - Netherlands

The Open State Foundation promotes transparency through the use of open data and innovative and creative applications. It will receive €50k to prototype a real-time database of what politicians say and do, drawn from a wide range of sources. The goal is to increase transparency and give journalists better access to political information, in particular on niche topics, local politics, backbenchers and alternative local parties.

[Medium] Publico.es - Spain

With its Transparent Journalism Tool (TJ Tool) and funding of €208,500 from the DNI Innovation Fund, Publico.es will offer an open source application that gives readers behind-the-scenes access citizens to the newspaper’s editorial process, so they can trace the newsgathering and editing work in a radically transparent way. It will also provide the publisher with data about the cost of producing each story, with a view to monetizing more content via formats like micropayments.  

[Large] Deutsche Welle - Germany

Deutsche Welle reports in 30 languages and reaches more than 135 million listeners around the world. Doing so cost-effectively is a major challenge. But with €437,500 from the DNI Innovation Fund, the German public broadcaster is building “news.bridge - Bridge the Language Barrier for News” a platform that integrates and enhances a mix of off-the-shelf tools for automated transcription, translation, voiceover and summarising of video and audio content in virtually any language.

[Large] WikiTribune - UK

WikiTribune, a news platform launched by Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, has been awarded €385,000 to scale its operations. It seeks to counter the proliferation of low quality news sources with fact-based, transparently sourced articles that are written by professional journalists and verified and improved by a community of volunteers. Like Wikipedia, it’s free, and ad free, but funded by supporters.

Since February 2016, we’ve evaluated more than 3,000 applications, carried out 748 interviews with project leaders, and offered 359 recipients in 29 countries a total of €73m. To mark this milestone, we’re hosting our first DNI Innovation Fund event today in Amsterdam, where 24 project teams that received funding in Round 1 or 2 will share details of their work and results to date.


We’re also publishing the Fund’s first annual report, which outlines the early impact of the projects funded so far. From startups to large newsrooms, at national and local news outlets, DNI-funded projects are embracing the opportunities of big data, blockchain technology and machine learning, evolving and reinventing everything from subscriptions and fact checking to video production and reader engagement.  These projects are helping shape the future of high-quality journalism—and some of them are already directly benefiting the European public today too.
Digital News Initiative Fund: Experiment, Innovate, Invent

Finally, we’re excited to announce that the application window for Round 4 of the DNI Innovation Fund will open in early September and will run for 30 days. Based on feedback from Round 3, we’ll be making a few changes to the application process, and we’ll be posting details to the digitalnewsinitiative.com website in the coming weeks.

Helping journalists tell stories with data

The Data Journalism Handbook, published in 2011, is considered the guidebook for telling stories with data. To ensure that journalists are up to speed on the latest data journalism practices, the Google News Lab is partnering with the the European Journalism Centre to launch a new version of the Data Journalism Handbook, which will be published in four languages next year.

The original handbook was born at a 48-hour workshop at MozFest 2011 in London, and became an international, collaborative effort involving dozens of data journalism's leading advocates and best practitioners.

Over the past three years, the handbook has been digitally downloaded 150,000 times, and almost a million people have accessed the online version. But the world is changing, and so are the ways we use data to tell news stories. So this project is one of a series of initiatives by the data team at the Google News Lab to support data journalists and help them understand how to best incorporate technology into their work—you can find out more on our site. We’re also proud to partner with the European Journalism Centre on their mission to connect journalists with new ideas through initiatives like the News Impact Summits and the News Impact Academy.

On July 31, we will open a call for contributions. Later this year, around 50 authors and experts will join a Handbook Hack to create and edit content for the new edition. And you won’t have to wait long to start reading the new chapters: we’ll make them available online as they are completed. Check out the official site for the latest updates.

Helping journalists tell stories with data

The Data Journalism Handbook, published in 2011, is considered the guidebook for telling stories with data. To ensure that journalists are up to speed on the latest data journalism practices, the Google News Lab is partnering with the the European Journalism Centre to launch a new version of the Data Journalism Handbook, which will be published in four languages next year.

The original handbook was born at a 48-hour workshop at MozFest 2011 in London, and became an international, collaborative effort involving dozens of data journalism's leading advocates and best practitioners.

Over the past three years, the handbook has been digitally downloaded 150,000 times, and almost a million people have accessed the online version. But the world is changing, and so are the ways we use data to tell news stories. So this project is one of a series of initiatives by the data team at the Google News Lab to support data journalists and help them understand how to best incorporate technology into their work—you can find out more on our site. We’re also proud to partner with the European Journalism Centre on their mission to connect journalists with new ideas through initiatives like the News Impact Summits and the News Impact Academy.

On July 31, we will open a call for contributions. Later this year, around 50 authors and experts will join a Handbook Hack to create and edit content for the new edition. And you won’t have to wait long to start reading the new chapters: we’ll make them available online as they are completed. Check out the official site for the latest updates.

How journalists can tell compelling stories using VR

Over the past few years, we’ve seen the rise of a new medium for storytelling in journalism: virtual reality.  From the printing press to radio, from television to the internet, and now VR, technological innovation has changed how journalists gather, report and deliver the news. VR is already making an impression on journalism by immersing an audience in a story, offering unlikely perspectives and creating connections to emotional moments.

At the Google News Lab, we help journalists develop a better understanding of how to tell stories in VR. So, for the past six months, we've conducted a research study that offers insight into what makes VR a distinct storytelling medium, why it’s alluring to people, and what that means for storytellers. We also partnered on this study with a team at Google called ZOO, a creative think tank for brands and agencies.

The study used a method of qualitative research called ethnography, which uses in-field observations and interviews to understand a person’s relationship with an experience. We conducted 36 interviews with a diverse range of participants, observing them as they interacted with their favorite VR pieces and asking them to reflect on how the experience made them feel.

Our study found that VR was distinct from other storytelling mediums in a few key ways. First, it conveys the sense that the viewer is “living the story” as opposed to passively consuming it (“storyliving” rather than storytelling). VR also allows people to dramatically expand their perspective on a story and can leave them with strong emotional experiences, but sometimes that comes at the expense of conveying information.

Participants found VR alluring for a few reasons: viewers can participate rather than simply be immersed in an experience; they can seek out a specific emotion, like happiness, or sadness or fear; and they can  embody someone or something else—a bird, a tree, or a person living on the other side of the world.

Storyliving: a study of how audiences experience VR and what that means for journalists

Storyliving: a study of how audiences experience VR and what that means for journalists

So, what do our findings mean for journalists who want to tell compelling stories in VR? Here are three factors journalists should consider, plus some tips for how you can incorporate VR into your reporting:

  1. VR is effective when it’s focused on conveying an emotional experience
    Given that VR is a medium that privileges storyliving over storytelling, journalists should approach how they structure and frame a story differently than they would with more traditional mediums. 

    For journalists, focus on conveying an emotional impression, rather than telling a story that follows a traditional narrative arch with a beginning, middle, and an end. Consider the emotional state you want the viewer to experience and find the moment within your story that can best deliver that. A viewer will often seek out more information about the subject they have just been immersed in, so it makes sense to package that detail or backstory alongside the VR experience. 

  2. Play with perspective in new ways and create opportunities for participation
    Conveying perspective—or encouraging people to see a story through someone else’s eyes—is critical to good journalism. VR has the unique ability to produce a sensation of embodiment which can be a powerful tool to expand perspective. 

    So journalists should let viewers  choose a perspective. Can you let a viewer experiences a story about a political crisis from a particular side of the conflict? Play the baseball game from the perspective of two teams? See outer space from the inside of an astronaut’s helmet?

  3. Consider the heightened vulnerability of subjects when telling a story
    VR can leave viewers in a state of vulnerability, both physically and emotionally. A person can feel surprised or shocked when entering the virtual experience or re-integrating into reality at the end of an experience.

    That means journalists should consider the ethics (both pitfalls and advantages) of making your viewer feel vulnerable when constructing a story about an emotionally sensitive topic. Journalists take this into account when constructing stories in a traditional medium, but the vulnerability is more pronounced in VR. 

    You should also signal to a viewer when they’re entering a story and when they’re exiting from it (similar to how movies begin with a title and end with the credits). This is especially important at the end of a VR story since viewers typically piece together their understanding of the story after it’s over. 

VR creates an opportunity for journalists to tell stories in a new way. Insights from our study can help journalists use VR to expand perspectives, create strong emotional connections to a story, and spread knowledge that matters. Go ahead, immerse yourself.

Redesigning Google News for everyone

Every day people come to Google News for a trusted view of the world. It’s there for everything from moments of political change to gripping sports events to daily local news. To make news more accessible and easier to navigate, we redesigned the desktop website with a renewed focus on facts, diverse perspectives, and more control for users.

06.20.17-homepage.png

Here’s a deeper look:

Designed for readability

06.19.17_before-after_katrinat.png

The new UI has a clean and uncluttered look, designed for comfortable reading and browsing.

  • We’ve adopted a card format that makes it easier to browse, scan and identify related articles about a story.
  • The new layout focuses on key elements, such as publisher names and article labels, and maintains your view and place on the page as you click in and out of stories and explore topics.  
  • We dedicated the navigation column on the left to sections that you customize. You can jump quickly to news you enjoy, whether it’s standard sections like Sports or Entertainment, or those created by you and powered by your queries, such as “FIFA World Cup” or “Bollywood.”

Easier navigation

At the top of the page you’ll notice a new navigation bar for “Headlines,” “Local” and “For You.” Upon signing in, you can personalize the “Local” and “For You” tabs. In “Local,” you can track stories from any part of the world that you care about—from your hometown to where you do business to where you went to school. In “For You,” you can pinpoint niche interests and create your own mini news feed, whether it’s following your favorite team, or satisfying your inner geek with news on cool gadgets and gizmos.

Story Cards with different perspectives

Story cards help you explore different perspectives to gain a well-rounded understanding of an issue. The first view offers a quick glance into a story. From there you can go deeper and read articles with different points of view which are frequently labeled with helpful tags (e.g., Local Source, Most Referenced, Opinion, or Fact Check). People have told us these labels identify important facets of a story and provide more context. As a result, whenever possible, we now show a second labeled article in addition to the top headline for each story. This way you can see additional context on stories immediately even as you are scanning.

The“Full Coverage” page, as the name suggests, lets you immerse yourself in coverage about a story or issue that you want to deep dive into.

06.20.17_full-coverage_katrinat.png

Accessed from the story card, this page gives you a range of articles with a diversity of perspectives. You can sort by relevance or date, see top videos, and browse top news topics in the “Related” block.

A dedicated Fact Check block

Facts are at the heart of a story’s credibility. Last year we introduced the Fact Check label so you can get easy access to fact checking articles that investigate claims made in the story. Now we’re adding a Fact Check block on the right column of “Headlines” that shows the top fact checked articles recently published (this feature is currently available in the U.S. only).

Videos

Videos have become central to news storytelling, so we improved the algorithmic selection for top videos, highlighted the top video in a story card, and built a better player. While playing a video, more related videos will be available in the player.

Settings

06.16.17_interest-settings_katrinat.png

Finally, we know you want to be in control of your news, so we are making it easier to update things under the hood, with all settings in one place. And to make Google News personal, new capabilities allow you to name your custom sections, edit existing sections, type in interests you want to see in the “For You” stream, and identify news sources that you want to see more (or less) of.

We’re rolling out this update globally in the coming days. We hope the new design enables you to easily access quality journalism, bolstered with meaningful insights and comprehensive coverage.

Helping journalists deepen their digital skills on their own time

It’s become increasingly important for journalists to deepen their digital skills for reporting, but finding dedicated time to invest in learning can be a challenge.

To address that challenge, the News Lab has launched a series of advanced online learning programs focused on helping journalists quickly develop skills across key disciplines in digital journalism—on their own time. We’ve worked with Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, Poynter Institute for Media Studies and Journalism and Media Studies Centre at The University of Hong Kong to develop this content, focused on serving multiple languages, regions, and topics. We're offering this content as an evolution of the lessons currently offered on on our site.

We have partnered with the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas to offer advanced online learning programs in both Spanish and Portuguese. The programs will include courses on verification, fact-checking, and immersive storytelling (e.g. VR, 360). Students who complete the required coursework can receive a certification from the Knight Center. The first course will be offered in Portuguese and will focus on fact-checking digital content.

In collaboration with the Knight Foundation, the American Press Institute, and the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, we will be supporting e-learning webinars, self-paced courses, and monthly training workshop opportunities on Poynter’s NewsU training platform. The content will include tutorials on digital tools like DocumentCloud and lessons on Google’s tools for journalists like Maps and Fusion Tables. We hope to offer journalists a holistic view of how these tools could work together in a real news environment.     

And in May, the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at the University of Hong Kong relaunched its five-week MOOC, Data Journalism Fundamentals, with additional language support. Produced in partnership with Google News Lab and top news organizations in Asia, the MOOC targets students and journalists of all levels of experience. Students can now take the course in English, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Korean, and Hindi. Case studies from newsrooms in Asia and data stories by leading international media organizations are also featured. More than 6000 students have participated in the original MOOC since it launched last year, and enrollment is expected to re-open in the fall with additional languages and content.

Students can earn a free certificate for the course through Hong Kong University by completing all required assignments. Students who complete the project will also get the chance to showcase their work on the JMSC website as well as receive expert critique by the instructors.

For more information about our training offerings and to sign up for these programs, visit https://newslab.withgoogle.com/training. We plan to bring more trainings of this type in the coming year, so let us know in the comments or email us at [email protected] with suggestions for other topics and formats.

How The New York Times used the Google Sheets API to report congressional votes in real time

There’s a common phrase among reporters: “The news never sleeps.” This is why many news outlets rely on cloud-based productivity tools like Google Docs and Sheets to share information, check facts and collaborate in real time. And The New York Times is no exception.

In May 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on a new health care law affecting millions of Americans. To report the news as fast as possible, The Times’ editorial team used Sheets to tally and display House votes in real time on NYTimes.com.


Engaging voters with the Sheets API

“People want to feel connected to the decisions their legislators make as soon as they make them,” said Tom Giratikanon,  a graphics editor at The Times. But rules in the House chamber make reporting on how every representative votes in real time difficult. Photography is restricted on the assembly floor, and there is a delay until all votes are displayed on the House website—a process that can sometimes take up to an hour.

To get around this lag, Giratikanon’s team used the Google Sheets API. The editorial team dispatched reporters to the chamber where they entered votes into a Google Sheet as they were shown on the vote boards. The sheet then auto-populated NYTimes.com using the Sheets API integration.

Says Giratikanon: “It’s easy to feel like decisions are veiled in the political process. Technology is a powerful way to bridge that gap. Sharing news immediately empowers our readers.”

It’s easy to feel like decisions are veiled in the political process. Technology is a powerful way to bridge that gap. Tom Giratikanon Graphics Editor, The New York Times
House votes

How it worked

To prep, Giratikanon tested the Sheets integration ahead of the House vote. He created a sheet listing the names of legislators in advance, so his team could avoid typos when entering data on the day of the vote. Next, he set up the Sheet to include qualifiers. A simple “Y” or “N” indicated “yes” and “no” votes.

After a few practice rounds, Giratikanon’s team realized they could add even more qualifiers to better inform readers–like flagging outlier votes and reporting on votes by party (i.e., Democrats vs. Republicans). The editorial team researched how each of the 431 legislators were expected to vote in advance. They created a rule in Sheets to automatically highlight surprises. If a legislator went against the grain, the sheet highlighted the cell in yellow and the editorial team fact-checked the original vote to reflect this in the article. Giratikanon also set up a rule to note votes by party.

As a result, The Times, which has roughly 2 million digital-only subscribers, beat the House website, reporting the new healthcare bill results and informing readers who were eager to follow how their legislator voted. 

NYT GIF

Try G Suite APIs today 

You can use Sheets and other G Suite products to help speed up real-time reporting, no matter the industry. Get started using the Sheets API today or check out other G Suite APIs, like the Slides API, Gmail API or Calendar API.

How The New York Times used Google Sheets to report congressional votes

There’s a common phrase among reporters: “The news never sleeps.” This is why many news outlets rely on cloud-based productivity tools like Google Docs and Sheets to share information, check facts and collaborate in real time. And The New York Times is no exception.

In May 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on a new health care law affecting millions of Americans. To report the news as fast as possible, The Times’ editorial team used Sheets to tally and display House votes in real time on NYTimes.com.


Engaging voters with the Sheets API

“People want to feel connected to the decisions their legislators make as soon as they make them,” said Tom Giratikanon,  a graphics editor at The Times. But rules in the House chamber make reporting on how every representative votes in real time difficult. Photography is restricted on the assembly floor, and there is a delay until all votes are displayed on the House website—a process that can sometimes take up to an hour.

To get around this lag, Giratikanon’s team used the Google Sheets API. The editorial team dispatched reporters to the chamber where they entered votes into a Google Sheet as they were shown on the vote boards. The sheet then auto-populated NYTimes.com using the Sheets API integration.

Says Giratikanon: “It’s easy to feel like decisions are veiled in the political process. Technology is a powerful way to bridge that gap. Sharing news immediately empowers our readers.”

It’s easy to feel like decisions are veiled in the political process. Technology is a powerful way to bridge that gap. Tom Giratikanon
Graphics Editor, The New York Times
House votes

How it worked

To prep, Giratikanon tested the Sheets integration ahead of the House vote. He created a sheet listing the names of legislators in advance, so his team could avoid typos when entering data on the day of the vote. Next, he set up the Sheet to include qualifiers. A simple “Y” or “N” indicated “yes” and “no” votes.

After a few practice rounds, Giratikanon’s team realized they could add even more qualifiers to better inform readers–like flagging outlier votes and reporting on votes by party (i.e., Democrats vs. Republicans). The editorial team researched how each of the 431 legislators were expected to vote in advance. They created a rule in Sheets to automatically highlight surprises. If a legislator went against the grain, the sheet highlighted the cell in yellow and the editorial team fact-checked the original vote to reflect this in the article. Giratikanon also set up a rule to note votes by party.

As a result, The Times, which has roughly 2 million digital-only subscribers, beat the House website, reporting the new healthcare bill results and informing readers who were eager to follow how their legislator voted. 

NYT GIF

Try G Suite APIs today 

You can use Sheets and other G Suite products to help speed up real-time reporting, no matter the industry. Get started using the Sheets API today or check out other G Suite APIs, like the Slides API, Gmail API or Calendar API.

Google News Lab powers digital journalism training for Africa

For journalists, recent advances in digital technology present compelling new opportunities to discover, tell and share stories—like this one from the Mail & Guardian that uses Google My Maps to highlight top water wasters in metro areas during the drought. But learning how to use new digital tools for reporting can be intimidating or even daunting. This is particularly true in Africa, where digital integration in news and storytelling often remains a challenge. Few journalism institutions offer training programs in digital tools, and news organizations often lack the capability to use new digital technologies in their reporting.

That’s why we’re supporting a new initiative that will offer journalists across Africa training in skills like mobile reporting, mapping, data visualization, verification, and fact checking. In partnership with the World Bank and Code For Africa, this project aims to train more than 6,000 journalists by February 2018, in 12 major African cities: Abuja, Cape Town, Casablanca, Dakar, Dar es Salaam, Durban, Freetown, Johannesburg, Kampala, Lagos, Nairobi and Yaounde. By providing the instruction and support to better use available digital tools available, we hope to empower journalists across Africa to produce cutting-edge and compelling reporting.

Training will take place in three formats:

  • Beginning June 15, we’ll hold in-person training sessions on topics ranging  from displaying data with an interactive map to effective reporting with a mobile device. In each city, we’ll conduct trainings in three newsrooms and hold trainings twice a month for the duration of the initiative.
  • In August, a massive open online course (MOOC) will be made freely available online, covering a range of web concepts and practices for digital journalists.
  • We will also hold monthly study groups in collaboration with Hacks/Hackers (a global meetup organization) to provide more focused, in-person instruction. These monthly meetings will take place in Cameroon, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda.

In 2016, we announced our commitment to train 1 million African youth on digital skills during the year to help them create and find jobs. We hope this new initiative also helps contribute to the continued growth of Africa’s digital economy.

Please visit www.academy.codeforafrica.org to learn more and to register.