Moments at the Intersection of Journalism and Technology in Casablanca.
Kickstarting Data-Driven Storytelling in Morocco
Lush grass is not what one might think about right off the bat when you mention Casablanca; neither is data journalism. But here we are. Sitting on lush grass, having a rather serendipitous picnic, discussing data journalism.
Picture this; trainers and participants sitting on a well-manicured lawn on a hot afternoon in Casablanca at the University of Mundiapolis, our host for the Casablanca d|Bootcamp. A modest lunch is spread on out before us. We’re locked in animated conversation about data journalism, tech and 360º cameras with Mayssa, a 21-year old journalism student from Tunisia who is studying in Morocco. We both forget to eat our sandwiches, and it is soon time to go back to the data literacy bootcamp session.
She tells me about how her University is already teaching data journalism, as well as some of the new news tools at the intersection of technology and journalism. I must admit, I’m a bit surprised, (but pleasantly). They are way ahead of some of the journalism & multimedia universities in Sub-saharan Africa. “This is good,” I think. The North African country is brimming with a young population ready to embrace technology and to create tools that create positive impact in their communities. And this is something that came out strongly during the Code for Africa d|Bootcamp in Casablanca, at the end of October.
Moments at the Intersection of Journalism and Technology in Casablanca
Code for Africa has been hosting data literacy bootcamps in cities and countries around the world, including Karachi (Pakistan), Uganda, Kenya, Moldova, Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania, Jordan, Tunisia, Nepal, and the US. This was the second time we’ve held a bootcamp in Northern Africa, and a bunch of assumptions I had going in were shattered in a good way. While a few days will never be enough to get a whole picture of what the future holds for Morocco, the data literacy bootcamp sure did give a glimpse into what these possibilities look like:
- The d|Bootcamp: This is the second d|Bootcamp in North Africa. The bootcamp is: “an intensive, hands-on training course, using team-based project work, to quickly teach technical skills on data journalism. The ujuzi bootcamps are designed to give journalists, civic activists, and coders a crash-course in the most important techniques and tools needed to analyse public spending information, including through open budget processes.”
2. The People: The Casablanca d|Bootcamp brought together a great mix of journalists , developers, designers and members from civil society. It was great to have government represented as well — the Representative of Ministere de I’lndustrie, du commerce, de I’lnvestissement et de I’Economie Numerique, Ms. Soraya Melyani showcased the Government of Morocco Open Data platform as well as its support services for civic data projects. This was great because it helped connect the dots on how data journalists could work together with government to help create data-driven stories and platforms or tools that help government deliver better services to its citizens, such as this Code for Africa tool, Got to Vote or Code for Kenya’s PesaCheck and Tax Clock.
While most conversations on gender balance centre on how many women turned up, the tide was different at the Casablanca d|Bootcamp, with the focus being on the skills, knowledge, experience and perspective that they brought to the table. There were 40% women, in key roles on all the project teams. In fact, one of the winning teams was an all-female team!
Ideas, Energy and Enthusiasm
The Code for Africa team landed in Casablanca just coming off Media Party Africa — (modelled after Media Party by Hacks/Hackers Buenos Aires, the first Media Party on the continent) in Cape Town, South Africa — and the energy and enthusiasm at the data bootcamp (for the entire three days!) was another great lift in spirits.
I was struck by how eager, aware and excited the participants, made up of mostly 20-somethings and early 30-somethings, were to roll up their sleeves and dig right in!
More than 30 people attended the Casablanca d|Bootcamp, which started with a series of informal talks and discussions around the power of Open Data, a fantastic exploration by Tarik Nesh-Nash (from Université Mundiapolis) of data journalism in Morocco and how data-driven story telling could be locally adapted, as well as how to build tools and platforms that citizens can really use.
THE PROJECTS
Our role is to enable and empower data-driven story-telling around the continent, and the data literacy bootcamps is one of the ways we do this. The Casablanca d|Bootcamp was the first of its kind in Morocco, and we were pretty excited at the synergies, and to see similar threads on advancing journalism and technology happening here.
There were some pretty impressive projects from just 2 days of hack/hacking:
This new community of data-journos will be an asset to the entire journalism community, not only in Morocco, but in Africa as well. Hopefully, we’ll get to do this in Morocco again.
A lot of hard work went into planning this data bootcamp — and we would like to say a BIG thank you to all our partners — Newscorp, International Center for Journalists, and with support from Code for Africa, Hacks/Hackers Africa and the African Network of Centers for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR) and the L’Université Mundiapolis de Casablanca. And a special shout out to Ms. Zineb Mahrez — who graciously handled all local communications and logistics.
Follow the conversation on Twitter — #dBootcamp — and a video here:
The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) is at the forefront of the news revolution. Its programs empower journalists and engage citizens with new technologies and best practices. ICFJ’s networks of reporters and media entrepreneurs are transforming the field. It believes that better journalism leads to better lives.
Code for Africa (CfAfrica) is the custodian of innovateAFRICA and is the continent’s largest independent digital journalism and civic technology initiative. It operates as a federation of autonomous country-based digital innovation organisations that support ‘citizen labs’ in five countries and major projects in a further 15 countries. CfAfrica runs Africa’s OpenGov Fellowships and also embeds innovation fellows into newsrooms and social justice organisations to help liberate data of public interest, or to build tools that help empower citizens. In addition to fellowships and tech labs, CfAfrica runs the $1 million per year innovateAFRICA fund and the $500,000 per yearimpactAFRICA fund, which both award seed grants to civic pioneers for experiments with everything from camera drones and environmental sensors, to encryption for whistleblowers and data-driven semantic analysis tools for investigative watchdogs. CfAfrica also curates continental resources such as theafricanSPENDING portal of budget transparency resources, the openAFRICAdata portal, the sourceAFRICA document repository and the connectedAFRICAtransparency toolkit for tracking the often hidden social networks and economic interests in politics. CfAfrica is an initiative of the ICFJ.
