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Press Releases of Thursday, 27 February 2020

Source: www.mynigeria.com

GhanaWeb wins Google funding to help journalism thrive in the digital age

Ghanaian-based news portal, Ghanaweb has received a $1.93 million grant from Google to fund its novel GhanaWeb Reporter project which will inject new ideas into the global news ecosystem.

The award-winning platform emerged winner of the Google News Initiative Innovation challenge that received 527 applications from 35 countries in 3 regions. Ghanaweb was named winner of the competition alongside 20 other news organizations that vied for the award.

The contest which was launched in June 2019 sought applications from three regions namely: the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa. At the tail end of the contest, 527 applications were received from 35 countries. 21 projects made the final cut after a rigorous review, a round of interviews and a final jury selection process.

Eight of the projects were from African countries including Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, and Morocco. GhanaWeb is the only company from Ghana to receive the highly coveted award.

The four criteria for selection included: impact, feasibility, innovation and inspiration, and the successful projects clearly demonstrated all four, Google announced in a blog post.

The project, GhanaWeb Reporter, which won the award, is an app for both Android and iOS devices that enables GhanaWeb’s 4 million monthly unique visitors to (re)publish their user-generated content (UGC) directly on www.ghanaweb.com.

The content is to be screened and published on a personal or topic page on the website or as a news or opinion article when it meets the required editorial guidelines. This novelty will amplify the voices of Ghanaians on the issues that matter to them.

The GNI Innovation Challenges are part of Google’s $300 million commitment to help journalism thrive in the digital age and to see news innovators step forward with new thinking.

In all, there were 108 recipients of the GNI Innovation Challenges in Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Middle East, Turkey & Africa and North America representing 39 countries around the regions.

“This funding will enable our partners to develop sustainable business models by diversifying revenue streams and/or increasing audience engagement,” Google added.