Justin Arenstein
director Code For Africa
Jacopo Ottaviani
chief data officer Code for Africa
Chris Roper
ICFJ Knight Fellow
Nasr ul Hadi
Knight Fellow International Center for Journalists
Robot Journalism: beyond the hype. How newsrooms in the Global South are using drones, sensors, and satellites for investigative journalism.
They were initially dismissed as gadgets for geeks, but drones and sensors and satellites are increasingly driving major journalistic investigations across the Global South. Drones in Africa have caught poachers red-handed and sparked heated global debate about urban inequality, while satellite imagery is helping debunk military propaganda, and sensors are helping fight deadly smog everywhere from Lagos to New Delhi. This panel shows how the technologies and techniques have moved beyond hype.
Tanzania/South Africa: Justin Arenstein speaks about the ambitious new africanDRONE network that uses drones to tackle everything from urban inequality to busting environmental crimes across the continent, as well as using hydrophones (underwater sensors) to track illegal dynamite fishing off Zanzibar.
Kenya/Somalia: Catherine Gicheru speaks about using satellite imagery and forensic analysis of social media photos/videos to debunk military propaganda about combat in difficult to reach places, such as Somalia and Kenya.
Indonesia/Mozambique: Jacopo Ottaviani speaks about using land-based microphones to track illegal logging in Indonesia, as well as satellites to expose illegal dredging in Nigeria and land grabs in Mozambique and South Africa.
India: Nasr ul Hadi speaks about how small and large newsrooms in India have experimented with sensor-driven dashboards to drive citizen engagement around the issue of air quality, especially in cities like New Delhi that are notorious for winter smog.
Moderated by Chris Roper.
