From 2012 to 2014, the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) worked in partnership with the African Media Initiative (AMI) to manage programs aimed at helping African media and media support outlets to improve the quality of their journalism, their use of technology, and their financial sustainability. Among these programs was the African News Innovation Challenge (ANIC), with its digital innovation lab, which provided grants and mentoring to organizations with the best ideas for finding technological solutions for news gathering and dissemination.

ICFJ provided Knight Fellows to manage ANIC and other programs with AMI. While these programs seeded many successful projects, budgetary problems at AMI led to some grantees not receiving their full payments, and eventually to the demise of that organization. A donor-initiated independent analysis confirmed that there was no issue with ANIC itself, or with the Knight Fellows that implemented the program. ANIC and its innovation lab spun out of AMI, as the standalone nonprofit Code for Africa (CfA), with ICFJ acting as a fiscal guarantor. ANIC’s donors moved with the program to CfA, which has since grown into one of the continent’s largest independent media-focused nonprofits. 

ICFJ attests to the quality of the Knight Fellows’ work and continues to closely collaborate with them and with CfA. ICFJ and CfA have joined forces with India-based PROTO to create ICFJ+, whose goal is to cultivate civic intelligence – information that helps people make sense of their world and act constructively to shape it.