Impact: Digital Path to Entrepreneurship and Innovation for Latin America

The most valuable aspect of the trip was meeting all the journalists, connecting with them and seeing the amazing work they are doing during a time of political chaos.

– Corrie MacLaggan, Texas Tribune, who traveled to Brazil as part of the exchange. 

Since 2015, ICFJ, with funding from the U.S. Department of State, has brought more than 170 Latin American journalists, entrepreneurs, technologists and digital media experts to train and work at media organizations throughout the United States. Nearly 30 U.S. media hosts have visited Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Colombia and Brazil to expand their cross-border collaborations.

Latin American fellows are placed with digital-first media organizations, the digital teams of traditional media and innovative start-ups. Hosts so far have included the Los Angeles Times, Mother Jones, AJ+, Fusion, Splash Media and the Huffington Post. The goal is for participants to launch digital media products in their own countries or develop business models to make existing projects more sustainable.

During the program, participants have launched or improved projects including:

• An online investigative outlet in Colombia
• A popular personal finance blog in Nicaragua
• An LGBT community network which was founded in collaboration with multiple fellows in Colombia
• A new platform, called Floods Alerts, which sends messages to citizens endangered by floods in the Amazonian cities of Brazil.