Senegal’s capital city of Dakar will on January 14 and 15 host the third edition of #HackAgainstEbola, organized by Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), the Union for Francophone Press (UPF), Code for Africa and the Global Editors Network. The event is supported by Google.
Organisers said the Dakar event would be the last of three Editors Lab focused on Ebola. The other ones were held in Accra (19-20 November) and Lagos (24-25 November).
“Epidemics create panic, dangerous rumors and uncertified facts. Ebola has not yet been neutralized, so journalists must be prepared. Unfortunately they don’t have the necessary resources and tools that match the responsibility they have to inform local communities,” organisers said in a statement.
They said the Editors Lab is trying to foster an environment to create those needed tools, by inviting 13 teams, composed of one journalist, one designer, and one developer, who will work to build a prototype in 48 hours.in partnership.
“The winning team will compete against the other winning Editors Lab teams during the Editors Lab Final, the World Cup of Newsroom Innovation,” organisers stated. “This final stage of the Editors Lab international tournament will occur during the GEN Summit 2015 in Barcelona next June. They will also benefit from mentoring sessions afterwards, provided by code for Africa, to help them implement their project and publish it.”
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