Knight International Journalism Fellow Mariano Blejman is creating the first news innovation contest in Latin America. Modeled on the African News Innovation Challenge, the contest will spur new technology that improves access to quality news and information. Blejman will upgrade the Hacks/Hackers network by running data boot camps and hackathons. He will also complete the development of Mapa76, a data-mining, semantic-analysis and visualization platform. To bolster these efforts, Blejman will hold the second annual Media Party for journalists and developers in August 2013. At these events, journalists and technologists will build and adapt tools that newsrooms can use to increase transparency and accountability.

Knight International Journalism Fellow Mariano Blejman is creating the first major news innovation contest in Latin America. Modeled on the African News Innovation Challenge, it will spur new technology that improves the quality and distribution of news. Blejman will run data boot camps and hackathons, events that bring journalists and technologists together to build and adapt tools designed to increase transparency and accountability. He will also complete the development of Mapa76, a set of digital tools that analyzes and displays data on timelines and maps. To bolster these efforts, Blejman will hold the second annual Media Party for journalists and developers in August 2013.