The United Nations Alliance of Civilizations and Google, in partnership with the World Bank Institute, delivered a full day Bootcamp in Tunis on Tuesday to 30 journalists from Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco on web tools for better newsgathering and reporting across cultures.
The 1-day workshop was underwritten by Google and the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations and led by an international team of experts from Google and the World Bank Institute, in association with the African Media Initiative among other partners. The workshop was held at the Institute of Press and Information Sciences, in Tunis, which benefited from a similar training conducted by Googlers for it’s master’s students the next day. Given the recent events in Tunisia and the active role of bloggers, Tunisia appeared as a natural place to train young professionals on better reporting across cultures and on the web.
“We recognize that the Internet is playing an increasingly significant role for the media in North Africa as a powerful mechanism for information sharing,” added Maha Abouelenein, Head of Communications for Google in the Middle East and North Africa. “By empowering participants to use powerful forensic tools to find, extract, and analyse public data, they are able to tell better informed stories.”
Participants also shared cross-cultural insights and experiences, to improve regional cohesion on shared data-driven priorities.
Among the participants were journalists from new blogs that emerged after the Tunisian revolution, such as Nawaat, journalists, and editors from small to large print, online and broadcast media from all three countries, all eager to learn how to better use online tools.
CO-HOSTS
- Maha Abouelenein – Google
- Stephanie Durand – United Nations Alliance of Civilizations
- Craig Hammer – The World Bank Institute
SESSION LEADERS
- Daniel Sieberg – Google
- Khaled Koubaa – Google
- Pierre Romera – Journalism++
More information can be found at: https://sites.google.com/site/databootcamptunisia/home-1
