JournalismAI, supported by GNI, awards 35 AI innovation grants
The grant will enable publishers to experiment, implement and share best practices of AI technologies, through the JournalismAI Innovation Challenge, supported by the Google News Initiative
We are excited to announce the selection of 35 news organisations for the JournalismAI Innovation Challenge, supported by the Google News Initiative.
The selected news organisations will be awarded grants of $50,000 or $250,000 to help them experiment, implement and share best practices of AI technologies. The grant funding was made possible with the support of the Google News Initiative.
The selected grantees are from 22 countries globally: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, France, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Jordan, Mongolia, Nigeria, Paraguay, Philippines, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom and United States. These organisations will work on projects that fight misinformation, experiment with new formats such as mobile, video and audio, and identify ways to grow subscriptions and support diverse forms of revenue.
Speaking to the selected grantees, Matt Cooke, Head of Ecosystem Investment Programs, AI & Misinformation, Google News Initiative said:
“We’ve worked with JournalismAI for six years to help develop industry research and share best practices with news organisations. We’re excited to build on that partnership by supporting this new programme to bolster small and medium-sized news publishers’ AI innovation efforts. We look forward to learning more about the selected projects, which we hope will inspire journalists and publishers around the world."
We received an overwhelming response for the programme, with 712 applications from across the world. The JournalismAI team filtered this list down to 303 applications based on basic eligibility criteria before sharing the shortlist with the Selection Committee. The Selection Committee then ranked the 303 applications based on criteria such as novelty, feasibility, potential for impact etc., and deliberated on the shortlist before identifying the finalists.
Speaking to the challenging task of selecting just 35 organisations from over 700 applications, Ezra Eeman, Director Strategy & Innovation at NPO and advisor to the JournalismAI Innovation Challenge, supported by the Google News Initiative said:
"The depth and creativity shown in the proposals demonstrates both the clear need for AI innovation in journalism and the industry's readiness to thoughtfully experiment with these technologies. Each selected project shows promise in advancing how newsrooms can responsibly leverage AI to serve their communities.”
Meet the 2024 Cohort and their project ideas!
The grantees are grouped across the three thematic areas below.
Experimenting with new formats across mobile, video and audio
*Click on the images to know them a little better.
Identifying ways to grow subscriptions and support diverse forms of revenue
*Click on the images to know them a little better.
To fight misinformation and disinformation
*Click on the images to know them a little better.
JournalismAI is an initiative of Polis, the journalism think-tank at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and supported by the Google News Initiative.