Opportunity : KIPLINGER DIGITAL MEDIA FELLOWSHIP- April 6, - April 11, 2014 in Columbus, Ohio.USA

Nov. 30, 2013 deadline

What is the Kiplinger Fellowship?

An online digital revolution is changing the way we communicate. For journalists, it's an ever-evolving new world, filled with opportunities as well as obstacles.

That's why the Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism offers short-term fellowships to help make better use of new online tools and channels. Thanks to the generous support of the Kiplinger Foundation, the training will be offered free of charge. In addition, the fellowship covers lodging, most meals and includes a travel stipend. The 2014 fellowship runs from Sunday, April 6, through Friday, April 11.

Fellows spend an intensive week at The Ohio State University in Columbus. They'll be immersed in training designed to pay off immediately in the newsroom. We'll explore creative reporting uses of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media sites. We'll showcase strategies for backgrounding individuals and companies, as well as building your online following. We'll focus on the latest tactics for effective public affairs reporting: public records, documents and data. Plus, we'll explore creative uses for online tools such as Deep Web searches and free data visualizations. And we will explore the ethical issues that come with social media.

Fellows will return to their newsrooms equipped with new and sharpened reporting tools. They'll learn how to tell powerful online stories that break through the noise and grab attention with an eye toward ethics. Stories that help people understand why in-depth reporting matters more than ever. Stories that make a difference.

So, if you're ready for digital media training that's hands-on and highly relevant, apply now for our fellowship.

To apply, journalists must have five or more years of experience at a news organization. All fellowship sessions are conducted in English without translators.

Become a Kip. Become a leader in the digital age.

Apply at  https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/B2S7MRS

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International Institute for ICT Journalism
www.penplusbytes.org

Innovation Prize for Africa

The Innovation Prize for Africa (IPA) – an initiative of the African Innovation Foundation – provides $150,000 USD to winners who develop African solutions to African challenges. The IPA is focused on identifying innovations in five key areas: 1) agriculture and agribusiness;

  2) environment, energy and water;

 3) health and well-being; 

 4) information & communication technology; 

and 5) manufacturing and service industry. 

Eligible innovations must be by Africans for Africa.  Africans in the Diaspora can also apply if their innovations are of significance for Africa. The innovation or associated business must be registered in Africa.

 

The IPA is more than a prize – it is a movement of African scientists, entrepreneurs, venture investors and policymakers who believe that the best way to sustain Africa's current economic growth is to scale up the good ideas that already exist on the continent.   

The deadline for applications for the Prize is 30 November 2013. 

http://innovationprizeforafrica.org/

 

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International Institute for ICT Journalism
www.penplusbytes.org

Ghanaians Push For Internet Access and Data Journalism

Ghanaian civil society organizations have banded together in a push for greater Internet access in the country. Earlier this month 30 organizations called on the government to make Internet penetration a priority. The call took place turning a workshop on Internet freedom in Ghana organized by the Media Foundation for West Africa with support from a UK-based organization, Global Partners and Associates. Ghana's Communications Minister, Dr. Edward Kofi Omane Boamah, has voiced his support for the organizations' plea.

"This is not an easy proposition in this era of technology and the necessity to build an inclusive and sustainable information and knowledge society," Boamah said as he opened the Regional Preparatory Meeting for Africa for the World Telecommunications Development Conference 2014.

He added:

We have no option in this regard. We must deliver if we truly are the policy-makers, the industry players, the development partners, the civil society and the academia and indeed the true representatives of the people. We must at all times recognize that the people will not lower their expectations because there are challenges.

A Media Foundation for West Africa study concluded that Internet penetration in Ghana is still under 20 percent.

Meanwhile, the International Institute of ICT Journalism (Penplusbytes) has just launched a two-year project called "Open Ghana – Data Journalism for Improved Maternal Healthcare Delivery." With additional funding and support from STAR-Ghana, the project will equip journalists in the Volta region with the tools to use data journalism to promote maternal healthcare stories.

The press release states:

Over the course of the project, Penplusbytes will develop interactive cutting edge online resources that will enable journalists, citizens and CSOs [civil society organizations] access and publish data on maternal healthcare delivery for a concerted advocacy work, undertake face-face forums that will bring stakeholders together to demand accountability from duty bearers and also issue regular SMS alerts to inform subscribers on the state of maternal healthcare delivery in the Volta Region.

The Volta region was chosen because it has not reached a target set by the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals to reduce maternal mortality by 2015.

While it is an admirable project that addresses a pressing need for maternal health, the success is in many ways dependent on access to ICTs, which in itself is a problem waiting to be addressed.

http://techpresident.com/news/wegov/24426/ghanaians-push-internet-access-and-data-journalismhttp://techpresident.com/news/wegov/24426/ghanaians-push-internet-access-and-data-journalism

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International Institute for ICT Journalism
www.penplusbytes.org

African Media Initiative (AMI) Statement

The Africa Media Initiative (AMI) has for some time engaged the Ethiopian leadership in a conversation that we hope will improve the local media landscape and help secure the release from prison of several Ethiopian journalists.

We embarked on this admittedly risky pursuit because we believe in respectful and candid dialog; after all, the same strategy of engaging leaders directly has helped free journalists this year in two other African countries.

Beyond merely securing the release of our colleagues, however, we also are devising a long-term strategy for the improvement of the atmosphere in which journalist work in Ethiopia. We are also eager to help strengthen the skill level of local journalists and media owners to help them better play their role effectively in a rapidly changing Ethiopia.

We note that our bold decision to hold our annual African Media Leaders Forum (AMLF) in Addis Ababa has had the altogether happy effect of focusing renewed attention on the plight of our colleagues. We are persuaded that this will contribute to hastening a long-term solution to their situation.

In the past several months' members of our board have had various conversations with Ethiopia's political leaders, including Prime Minister Desalegn and a number of his cabinet colleagues. We have done the same with family members of the incarcerated journalists and their colleagues inside and outside Ethiopia.

We have found a significant degree of openness in our conversations with the authorities, even an eagerness to help resolve this problem, which we consider wholly unnecessary and even harmful to Ethiopia's larger ambitions to leave its recent traumatic experiences behind.
 
Despite blunt refusals to allow various foreign delegations, including European and American ones to visit the imprisoned journalists, Ethiopian officials finally consented to allow AMI leaders to visit the prison in Addis Ababa on Wednesday November 6. While an unfortunate disagreement on the prison grounds over who would be allowed to sit in on our planned meeting with our colleagues temporarily aborted the mission, we are hopeful that we will soon be able to gain direct access again to facilitate their release.

Importantly, we are persuaded that many key leaders in Ethiopia share our view that it is past time for our colleagues to be released. We would like to thank the prime minister and many in his cabinet for this opening, and look forward to a rapid resolution.
 
We understand and sympathize with some of our colleagues and partners, who have expressed concern, and even skepticism, regarding our approach. Some believe that a more confrontational stance is required. That is not our belief as we think there is more than one way to get to the same destination.

Finally, we note with disappointment the ill-advised decision by the Kenyan parliament to pass a new law constraining press freedoms. This is a wholly unnecessary embarrassment to a resurgent Kenya, whose robust media has played an invaluable role in resolving its political crisis of recent years, and in comforting a nation traumatized by terrorism and shining a bright light on the inadequacies of its security forces.
We are encouraged that the Kenyan president has expressed skepticism about the proposed law, and wish to state our clear opposition to its ever being enacted.

Addis Ababa, November 8, 2013

End

About AMI
The African Media Initiative is the continent's largest umbrella association of African media owners, senior executives and other industry stakeholders. AMI's mandate is to serve as a catalyst for strengthening African media by building the tools, knowledge resources and technical capacity for African media to play an effective public interest role in their societies. This mandate includes assisting with the development of professional standards, financial sustainability, technological adaptability and civic engagement.

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International Institute for ICT Journalism
www.penplusbytes.org

EVENT- Accra,Ghana : Power of the Pen Roundtable

The Power of the Pen is an interactive, three-day roundtable co-sponsored by the US State Department. Each edition caters to a small group of media representatives from a different region of the world. The roundtable provides an opportunity to examine and overcome obstacles to ethical reporting, challenges to fair and thorough investigative journalism in the field of corruption and develop best practices based upon case studies with well-known journalists from the region and all other corners from the world.

The first Power of the Pen targeted the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, while the second caters to Sub-Saharan Africa.

Target Group : Individuals who have practiced principled journalism and currently work in the field of print, broadcast or photographic media

Duration :  3 days in April/May 2014, exact dates to be announced in early 2014

Location : Accra, Ghana

Application  : 4 November - 17 December 2013 

To apply go to http://www.iaca.int/index.php?option=com_jumi&fileid=13

For more info visit : http://www.iaca.int/standardized-trainings/power-of-the-pen

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International Institute for ICT Journalism
www.penplusbytes.org

Opportunity : Harvard, Applied Data Fellowship (residential)

The Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University invites scholars, practitioners, innovators and others committed to understanding and remedying institutional corruption to submit proposals to join our community.

From the start, research at the Lab has been designed and conducted with real-world applications in mind. In 2014-15, as the Lab project comes to the end of its five-year life, our aim is to release tools (e.g. databases, guidelines, applications, etc.) to the public and to policy-makers that work toward solving problems of institutional corruption in a variety of contexts. But we need help! The Applied Data Fellow will be critical  in helping to translate the research of the Lab into useful tools by pursuing original and independent research to architect the Lab's real-world impact on institutional corruption.

In addition to original research, the Applied Data Fellow will maintain an ongoing dialogue with the Lab Fellows, whose academic and journalistic projects can be translated to and integrated in an inventive range of data-driven tools to reveal, correct, or prevent institutional corruption. Such tools include publicly-accessible databases on conflicts of interest and on money's corrupting influence in government, healthcare, academia, and various professions; high-impact websites and ingenious applications to check and report on perceived and real institutional corruption in these fields; and educational, training and social media tools for raising awareness of both problems and solutions surrounding institutional corruption. Learn about our past and current research projects here.

The Applied Data Fellow will be salaried and benefits eligible, and will be housed at the Center. While highly competitive, this Fellowship defies a one-size-fits-all description. Researchers, scholars, and professionals from a broad variety of backgrounds are encouraged to apply. Comprehensive quantitative problem-solving, coding, data integration/visualization, and website development are among the relevant skills, alongside passion, independence, collegiality, and both the commitment and ability to see projects through to completion.

To apply, see "How to Apply" above.

http://ethics.harvard.edu/lab/opportunities

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International Institute for ICT Journalism
www.penplusbytes.org

Training Opportunity : Writing and Reporting News- London UK, Thomson Reuters/Deadline 15th November 2013

The core activity concerns the actual writing and reporting of news, as practiced by Reuters and other global agencies. Practical exercises form the core of the programme, with an emphasis on improving basic reporting and writing skills including accuracy, impartiality, speed, clarity and structure. The course will help journalists recognise their good habits and provide them the time and space to work on their weak points, within a mentored framework. The course combines face-to-face teaching with online study. It starts with five days in London followed by online modules made up of ten units of study. It is anticipated each online unit will take about two weeks to complete and the modules can be completed in six months.

COURSE DETAILS:

Start date: Feb 10, 2014

End date: Feb 14, 2014

Location: London, UK – England and Wales

Application deadline: Nov 15, 2013

ELIGIBILITY:

All applicants for Thomson Reuters Foundation training courses must:

Currently be working as journalists or regular contributors to print, broadcast or online media organisations.

They must be able to demonstrate a commitment to a career in journalism in their country.

Have at least two years' professional experience.

Have a good level in spoken and written English.

Please note: If you have been on a Thomson Reuters Foundation training programme within the last two years you will not be eligible to apply.

FUNDING:

Thomson Reuters Foundation offers:

Full bursaries for journalists from the developing world/countries in political transition working for organisations with no resources for training. Bursaries would include air travel expenses (economy class), accommodation and a modest living allowance. This arrangement is subject to variation. The cost of the online modules will be included in the full bursary.

Part-funded bursaries are available for journalists from the developing world/countries in political transition who work for organisations that have limited resources for training, in this instance Thomson Reuters Foundation waives the tuition cost and the participant will be expected to cover travel and accommodation costs. In exceptional circumstances journalists from the developed world will be considered for part-funded bursaries. The cost of the online modules would not be covered by Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Thomson Reuters Foundation also offers training for journalists from any region from an organisation that has the resources to fully cover the following costs of the programme: tuition fees: £200 per day (£1000 for a 5-day London course), travel and accommodation costs and living expenses.Thomson Reuters Foundation would provide a list of hotels for participants who require accommodation in London. If you have any questions please email: trustmedia@thomsonreuters.com The cost of the ten online modules is £1,000.

SUBMISSIONS:

A biography of up to 250 words outlining your career

One recent example of your published work, preferably relevant to the course for which you are applying, with a brief summary in English (if necessary). TV/Radio journalists can send in their scripts and a brief summary.

A statement of between 250 and 500 words describing any factors affecting your work as a journalist. Explain how you hope to benefit from the course for which you are applying.

http://www.trust.org/course/?id=a05D000000HfCKEIA3

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International Institute for ICT Journalism
www.penplusbytes.org

Media Advisory for World Pneumonia Day and Africa( 12 November 2013)

Dear Penplusbytes(PPB) members

Whilst PPB's main work is in other areas, I'd like to beg your attention on an important subject which affects too many families in Africa today: pneumonia.

As well as being on the board of PPB I am also on the board of a group called The Pan African Thoracic Society (PATS). Our brief is to improve respiratory medicine, and to reduce the burden of disease from respiratory complications.

Tuesday November 12 is World Pneumonia Day. 

We want an impact. We have therefore prepared the attached document that highlights key issues about pneumonia in Africa. It is in note form. It is intended to be a valuable resource for journalists, bloggers, people involved concerned about everyone around them.

PLEASE… write, publish, broadcast, advocate, do whatever you can.

Let's together raise the awareness of what can be prevented, and what needs to be done.

If it isn't your area, please feel free to pass it to people who might be able to use it.

And if coverage does ensue, and you can capture it… do feed details back to me. We're trying to monitor coverage.

Thank you for your attention.

Bryan Pearson

See more at www.africanthoracic.org 

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International Institute for ICT Journalism
www.penplusbytes.org