Each week as part of the Knight International Media Innovators blog, the ICFJ Knight team will round up stories focused on how their fellows are making an impact in the field. Find out more about the fellows' projects by clicking here.
Hacks/Hackers looks to help the refugee crisis, a “Twitter for Journalists” webinar and more from the Knight Fellows in this week’s roundup.
Hacks/Hackers Africa turns its attention to global refugee crisis
Inspired by the 19 Million Project that is being led by former ICFJ Knight Fellow Mariana Santos, the Hacks/Hackers Africa community devoted its monthly meetup in Nairobi to exploring what journalists and hackers could do to help with the global refugee crisis. Code for Africa, founded by ICFJ Knight Fellow Justin Arenstein, partnered with Refunite, UNHCR Kenya and the Humanitarian Data Exchange for an event last Friday to discuss how hackers can help as the crisis persists. Read Code for Africa’s Serah Njambi Rono Medium blog for more details on the event.
Santos, who is looking at ways technology can assist with the millions of displaced persons around the world, writes this column about how human-centered design can lead the way to better media innovation and storytelling.
ICFJ Knight Fellows conduct webinar on “Twitter for Journalists”
How do you verify sources on Twitter? What happens when you need to correct a tweet? In the latest installment of the Dow Jones Foundation Webinar Series hosted by ICFJ, Chris Roper, Raymond Joseph, who are both Knight fellows, and digital journalist Haji Mohamed Dawjee answered those questions and provided useful tips for novice and experienced journalists using Twitter. The hour-long session on Nov. 18 included a lively discussion on, of course, Twitter. Read a recap of the session here, or check out the archived video. Roper also uploaded his presentation to this link for download.
The next webinar in the series will take place on Dec. 9 and will be led by ICFJ Knight Fellow Nasr ul Hadi, who will break down the digital information supply chain. Mark your calendars!
SocialTIC meetup in Mexico: Just the facts, please - and mezcal
SocialTIC, a data journalism organization led by ICFJ Knight Fellow Juan Manuel Casanueva, is hosting a meetup at 7 p.m. on Nov. 26, at the Dulce Maguey in Cuauhtémoc, México. Journalists and anyone interested in open data projects, technology and civic hacking should join in this end-of-year discussion!
African Statistics Day: Better data for better lives
Nov. 18 is “African Statistics Day,” as designated by the UN's Economic Commission for Africa. The day, observed each year, focuses on raising awareness about the importance of statistics for development, health and economic advancement. Serah Njambi Rono of Code for Africa writes about the importance of better data and analysis and examines how journalism can advance it. Read her Medium blog for a list of up-to-date tips and tools for using open data from organizations like CartoDB and Northwestern University’s Knight Lab.
Why public scrutiny is the most powerful tool in Uganda
How do you reduce levels of corruption? Irene Ikomu, one of four Code for Africa and Open Knowledge Open Government Fellows and manager of Parliament Watch Uganda, believes opening government data will lead to the public demanding better government accountability. Read Ikomu’s blog post on Code for Africa’s Medium to learn why open data can be effective in fighting corruption.
Main image CC-licensed by Flickr via Josh Zakary.