We are excited to announce that we have been selected to take part in the Google News Initiative (GNI) Innovation Challenge 2022! The GNI Innovation challenge supports a range of news and tech organisations from around the world that pioneer new thinking in online journalism, develop new paths to sustainability and implement strategies to better meet the news needs of their communities. As part of the GNI Innovation Challenge, we will be developing the Africa Gender Data Portal, under the Africa Data Hub project.

Through this year-long project, we will provide African journalists with the data, tools, training and support to report on stories through a gendered lens with nuance, context and accuracy. More specifically, the portal will serve to streamline the data pipeline and provide otherwise inaccessible data for journalists as well as helping to “demystify” data and to up-skill journalists with the capabilities and tools to use data in their stories with confidence. The portal will leverage the significant momentum already generated by the Africa Data Hub core in establishing a data pipeline, setting up partnerships with newsrooms and other related stakeholders, creating data tools and assets on other health issues, supporting training in newsrooms, and not insignificantly harnessing the governance, management and operations of a multi-partner continent wide initiative. This project will be implemented through the broader ADH collective of organisations, including Open Cities Lab, Open Up, Orodata Science, Odipodev, Media Hack Collective and Media Monitoring Africa.

Sign up to our newsletter or follow us on Twitter or Facebook to be the first to get it when it lands. Or for more information, you can contact Sarah on sarah@opencitieslab.org .