Applications are open for the Google News Initiative- GNI Innovation Challenge 2019 for the Middle East, Africa, and Turkey. The Google News Initiative (GNI) is Google’s global effort to work with the news industry to help journalism thrive in the digital age.
Through rounds of regional funding, the GNI Innovation Challenges will empower news innovators from around the world to demonstrate new thinking in online journalism and the development of new publishing business models. In turn, Google hopes to share knowledge generated from the projects with the wider industry.
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The first Middle East, Africa and Turkey GNI Innovation Challenge will give everyone an opportunity to inject new ideas and innovation in the news ecosystem. They will focus on creative projects that demonstrate opportunities to increase reader engagement and support the development of new business models.
Eligible Projects:
All ideas are welcome but Google is requiring all projects to have clear indicators showing the impact of the project from a user perspective and/or from a business perspective (eg: audience indicators, business plan when relevant). Successful projects will also need to be delivered within one year.
They encourage innovative projects – focused on but not limited to- the areas below:
- Business Models
- Distribution
- Interface
- Social
- Workflow
Projects can be experimental but must be measurable with well-defined goals. They encourage you to clearly underline the opportunities of the project by providing clear key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs should have a significant digital component. Please check the official link for more details.
The Google News Initiative (GNI) is a global effort to work with the news industry to help journalism thrive in the digital age. Through rounds of regional funding, the GNI Innovation Challenges will empower news innovators from around the world to demonstrate new thinking in online journalism and the development of new publishing business models. In turn, they will share knowledge generated from the projects with the wider industry.
In the first year of the Google News Initiative, their efforts have centered around a spirit of experimentation, with programs focused on three pillars: working with the news industry to evolve their business models, raising up quality journalism and driving new thinking and approaches in newsrooms. There’s still much to be done, but they remain committed to collaborating with publishers to build a stronger future for journalism.
Benefits
- Google will award up to $150k for each project, up to a maximum of 70% of the total project budget.
- Eligible expenses include personnel costs, engineering costs and the purchase or licensing of any equipment, tools, hardware, software and other assets or
- materials needed for the project as well as marketing expenses (capped to 20% of the total amount requested).
Eligibilities
- The Challenge is open to organizations of every size, including freelancers and sole traders, that aim to produce innovative, original journalism and to enlighten citizens with trustworthy journalistic content, whose projects focus on encouraging a more sustainable news ecosystem.
- Established publishers, online-only players, news startups, publisher consortia, and local industry associations are all eligible to apply.
- Incorporated organizations must be incorporated into one of the eligible countries within (countries listed in “Terms & Conditions” in the official link) in the Middle East, Africa, and Turkey. Unincorporated organizations must be registered in the Middle East, Africa, and Turkey or, if unregistered, have their principal place of business based in the region.
Application Process
Apply online through the given link.
To get more exciting opportunities like this, at your fingertips, install the Youth Opportunities Mobile App here from your cellphone.
Application Deadline: September 2, 2019
Application ClosedOfficial link
