StoryLab Academy Digital Skills Training Program for African Journalists and Newsrooms 2017

The new StoryLab Academy will train newsrooms in 12 hub cities across Africa to leverage both software and hardware tools, such as camera drones, by partnering newsrooms with local experts.  

Application Deadline: Ongoing

Type: Training

Eligible Countries: Abuja (Nigeria), Cape Town (South Africa), Casablanca (Morocco), Dakar (Senegal), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Durban (South Africa), Freetown (Sierra Leone), Johannesburg (South Africa), Kampala (Uganda), Lagos (Nigeria), Nairobi (Kenya) and Yaoundé (Cameroon).

About the Award: Rewiring newsrooms for the digital age isn’t easy.

Newsrooms are complex, fragile machines that struggle daily with the balance between churning out large quantities of content while striving to create journalistic perfection. You can seldom just flick a switch, or plug in new people and new systems. Real digital transformation is much messier, and involves reskilling people rather than wholesale replacement.

The initiative, run as an Academy out of CfA’s award-winning StoryLab journalism laboratory, will use a combination of online webinars and face-to-face learning to help entire newsrooms adopt new digital ways to find and tell the news.

The StoryLab already has physical hubs in four African countries and a global network of roving data journalists and digital creatives who help newsrooms on projects ranging from investigative data analysis, to drone journalism and 360° video. The new Academy will build on this network, boosting the number of digital advisors and mentors to work with media partners so that they can train entire teams in their workplace over extended periods. The Academy will also offer online courses with Africa-specific projects and assignments, and will work with journalism schools to help give new entrants the skills they need to cement newsrooms’ own efforts to rewire their systems.

Here’s how we’re kickstarting the process:

• Newsroom Partnerships
• Mass Open Online Course (MOOC)
• Public Workshops
• University Partnerships
• Other Opportunities

Eligibility: Interested participants can get involved if they fall under the following categories

• Newsroom Partnerships: The Academy is partnering with 36 newsrooms in 12 African cities for bi-weekly onsite workshops teaching the most important digital tools and techniques for strengthening African journalists’ voices online.
• Mass Open Online Course (MOOC): Africa is a big place, and the 12 focal cities are just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. The Academy will therefore launch an online course in August for journalists anywhere in Africa.
• Public Workshops: While online courses are great, face-to-face tuition is still better. The Academy will therefore co-host monthly workshops and masterclasses, in partnership with local Hacks/Hackers chapters in the 12 target cities.
• University Partnerships: Africa’s journalism schools and universities

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Program: Participation is free-of-charge. All you need to do is commit to use your new skills to create awesome journalism!

How to Apply: 

Visit Program Webpage for details

Award Provider:  Code for Africa (CfA), Google News Lab, The World Bank Global Media Development Programme