$1 Million in Prizes

An annual pan-African innovation competition to encourage digital experimentation.

Based on proven models, with industry leaders as funding & capacity partners.

Designed to nurture an ‘innovation ecosystem’ for low-cost, low-risk experimentation with rapid iteration / prototyping.

Tangible Solutions

Solutions to real-world challenges faced by African legacy media.

Wide focus that embraces everything from audience engagement & content distribution, to new revenue models, workflow systems, etc.

Preference for scalable solutions that leverage mass media technologies.

More Than Money

Prizes range from $12,500 up to $100,000 in seed funding.

Additional one-on-one business mentorship to build sustainable revenue models.

Additional engineering / incubation support.

Additional marketing / rollout support.

Timelines & Processes

Industry will help shape themes / categories by Q1 2012.

Deadline for Applications Q2 2012.

Two-phase judging process with finalists announced Q3 2012.

Winners announced at AMLF 2012.

Development Phase

Cash prizes transferred in tranches, as delivery benchmarks achieved.

Encouraged to beta-test in AMI member newsrooms.

International roadshow + African Symposium to showcase working prototypes in 2013.

Building Community

Hacks/Hackers networks to build communities of journalism-focused programmers / developers.

Quarterly mini-challenges for proof-of-concept experimentation + team-building.

Tackle topic-based challenges via hackathons, experiment with data journalism, transfer technical skills, build newsroom tools.

Pilot Projects

Assist AMI partner media to run larger newsroom experiments.

Connect innovators / entrepreneurs with tech skills and/or solutions to newsrooms.

Help newsrooms scale homegrown solutions.

Help newsrooms localise global solutions.

Share Knowledge

Success good – but failure also instructive, as long as fail fast.

Document the successes / failures, in tech detail, so we can avoid repeatedly reinventing the wheel.

Repository for experiments, code, case studies, tools, and expertise.

www.africannewschallenge.orgwww.africanmediainitiative.org