Washington, D.C. – Five new Knight International Journalism Fellows will lead projects that will use digital technology to enhance media coverage in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. They will:

• Create the first Hacks/Hackers groups – the frontline in merging journalism and technology and another Knight Foundation grantee – in Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia. Fellow Ayman Salah, a native of Egypt, is a digital media entrepreneur who re-launched the Middle East News Agency’s SMS news service. In 2007, he joined IREX’s Media Development Program to help news organizations become more profitable. He covers technology and gaming as a journalist.

• Digitally map citizen reports of corruption in Colombia in the run-up to local elections, partnering with the nation’s largest newspaper. Fellow Ronnie Lovler, of San Francisco, has reported throughout the Americas for CNN, CBS and The Associated Press, among others. Recently, she was associate director of the Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism at San Francisco State University, and she worked as a senior writer on Newsdesk.org, an online startup.

• Target dynamic, multimedia health news for tech-savvy young people for the first time in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. Fellow Declan Okpalaeke, a native Nigerian, is a three-time winner of CNN’s African Journalist of the Year Award for his coverage of health, the environment and sports in Nigeria. He works with journalists across Africa and the Arab world as a mentor for the World Federation of Science Journalists. He served as a top editor at several Nigerian publications and he was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard.

• Turn several large Liberian radio stations into the first commercially successful networks – with strategies that include mobile news services – and train their news staffs to produce fair and balanced coverage ahead of this fall’s elections. Fellow Luisa Piette, a native of Guinea-Bissau, is a U.S.-based entrepreneur and a journalist who specializes in African affairs. She is the founder of RuMBA, the Rural Mobile & Broadband Alliance USA, a non-profit that works to bridge the digital divide between urban, suburban and rural America.

• Deepen coverage in South Africa of devastating diseases including AIDS and malaria, at the country’s largest radio network and community TV station. Fellow Brenda Wilson has worked for the past 20 years as a correspondent and editor in Washington, D.C., on the science desk of National Public Radio, covering global health issues.

The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), which runs the fellowship program, introduced the 2011 fellows at a reception at the Newseum on June 21, following a weeklong orientation. The Knight International Journalism Fellowships are funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provides additional support for fellowships devoted to improving coverage of health and poverty issues in Africa.

Bloomberg Executive Editor Susan Goldberg, the emcee of the event, called the Knight fellows “an extremely talented group of professionals from very diverse backgrounds working on terrific projects.”

Over the past four years, Knight International Journalism Fellows can take credit for at least 45 meaningful changes in government policies in response to hard-hitting stories by their trainees, added ICFJ President Joyce Barnathan. “The bottom line: The fellows’ work has been truly transformational,” she said.

In a sign of growing strength, the program has attracted $10 million in support since 2007 in addition to Knight Foundation’s grants. These funds have helped to expand and enhance significantly the work of the fellows.