Knight Fellow Ayman Salah is connecting journalists in the Middle East with tech experts. Together they will find ways to deliver quality news using the latest digital know-how in a freer media environment.

Knight International Journalism Fellow Ayman Salah is connecting journalists with IT experts across the Middle East by starting Hacks/Hackers chapters. Salah has launched the technology journalism group in three countries: Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia. Participants are working to find technological solutions to information bottlenecks.

In Amman, journalists and programmers developed the first mobile citizen journalism reporting app for major Jordanian news outlets. This app enables citizens to quickly send text, photos and video to a server hosted by the independent news site AmmanNet and the daily newspaper Al Ghad. In Egypt, Hacks/Hackers developed a similar app for Al-Masry Al-Youm. The paper plans to use the app to cover the presidential run-off election.

Salah recently helped 7iber, an online youth citizen journalism organization, to hold a two-day social innovation camp that brought together more than 50 journalists, social entrepreneurs, graphic designers, programmers and activists. Participants pitched 12 ideas for mobile and web applications to a team of judges including Salah. Each of the three winners received $2,000 for further development, and at least three of the projects are currently in development.