The Media Innovators You Need to Meet

Joyce Barnathan, ICFJ president, will host a cocktail reception on Sept. 15 at the ONA 2016 Conference:

Strengthen Your Newsroom Through Global Partnerships

News stories today often cross borders—as does media innovation. But how do you link up with the right players overseas? That’s easy: Meet ICFJ’s Knight Fellows working in key regions around the world. Have an investigative story that you want to develop in Africa or Latin America? Need a new app to size up whether your reporters are safe while working abroad? Want access to a database of drug lords in Mexico or an interactive project on the impact of terrorism in Pakistan? If the answer to any of these is yes, then join us for food and drinks and meet:

ICFJ Knight Fellows

Justin Arenstein, Founder, Code for Africa, South Africa
Nasr ul Hadi, Digital-first Newsroom Expert, India
Omar Mohammed, Lead, Code for Tanzania
Shaheryar Popalzai, Digital News Strategist, Pakistan
Chris Roper, Editorial Strategist, Code for Africa, South Africa

Thursday, September 15, 2016

5:00 - 6:00 PM

Hyatt Regency Denver
Mineral Hall D-E
650 15th Street, Denver, CO 80202

Meet ICFJ's Knight Fellows:

Justin Arenstein of South Africa started the Code for Africa movement, which embeds technologists into newsrooms to train journalists to mine and visualize data for stories. He launched the African Network of Centers for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR), which produced many stories in the Panama Papers investigation. Arenstein leads the $1 million innovateAFRICA challenge, which encourages newsrooms to adopt digital technologies to improve their reach and sustainability.

Nasr ul Hadi is helping re-engineer newsrooms for the digital era. He has developed a detailed toolbox that can take you step by step through the process. He used it to help launch India’s only digital-first TV news channel. He has a wide range of experience in print, photo, radio and TV journalism. Prior to his fellowship, Hadi served as a consultant for several digital media companies.

Omar Mohammed is working with Tanzanian media to develop interactive sites and apps that improve the health of citizens by helping them find affordable medicine and licensed doctors. There are ways to adapt these tools for American audiences. In 2015, he helped launch Quartz Africa and worked as the platform's East African reporter based in Tanzania’s commercial capital, Dar es Salaam.

Shaheryar Popalzai has built newsroom labs that do everything from using 360-degree video to exploring Pakistan’s biggest slum to deploying sensors in cars to map potholes. He has developed a toolkit to show you how to do this on a budget. He recently worked with the Express Tribune on “For Peshawar,” a multimedia project that tells the story of a terrorist attack that killed 147 people, most of them children, at an army school. The data-rich piece is a finalist for an Online Journalism Award.

Chris Roper leads the African Network of Centers for Investigative Reporting, which played a key role in breaking African stories in the Panama Papers project. He is now working on new ways to monetize data tools by working with advertisers. He is the organizer of the first Media Party Africa, the continent’s largest news innovation event. A veteran digital strategist with more than 15 years of experience in newsrooms, Roper was editor-in-chief at South Africa’s Mail & Guardian before becoming an ICFJ Knight Fellow.