Knight International Journalism Fellowships

Middle East: Launch a Network to Connect Journalists with IT Experts

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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.

Ayman Salah has formed the first Hacks/Hackers chapter in Amman, bringing together journalists from the online, Arabic news site AmmanNet and and Al Ghad newspaper, students from the University of Jordan and Jordan Media Institute, and developers from the Jordan Open Source Association. The goal: to grow local technology that supports the development of independent, Arabic-language media in the region.

Among the initial ideas: A mobile application that connects citizens directly to news media. The app will enable news media to collect, verify and publish citizen-journalists reports – and build their first networks of citizen journalists across the country.

Journalists from AmmanNet and Al Ghad are now working with programmers from the Jordan Open Source Association to develop this mobile application for citizen reporting.

Blogs

  • Apr 182012

    In the Works: A Mobile App to Help Jordan's Farmers

    by Ayman Salah

    Tomato farmers all over Jordan face a daily challenge. Should they collect their daily crops and send them to the central vegetable markets without knowing the market availability or price? If there is a big stock of tomatoes in that market, high supply and stable demand reduce the prices. Sometimes there aren't enough buyers and the produce goes to waste. Since there are no tomato processing facilities in Jordan, the result is a direct loss to Jordanian farmers.