academy.AFRICA is a new online platform seeking to promote digital journalism in African newsrooms. The Academy brings together Code for Africa, Google News Initiative, World Bank and HackHackers Africa in a partnership aimed at providing African newsrooms with the technologies and learning material necessary for success in today’s online news market. A lot of the learning material, which complements Google News Initiative’s online tutorials, was developed in Africa and tested by the World Bank in Sudan and Kenya. The material can also be used in unison with news apps and visualizations developed by Code for Africa teams in Nigeria and Tanzania. Currently, the platform has four initial programs: newsroom partnerships, Mass Open Online Courses (MOOCs), public workshops and university partnerships. The MOOCs offered through academy.AFRICA are specifically designed to provide African journalists, both beginners and advanced, with free opportunities to acquire new skills and improve their digital storytelling abilities. These online webinars and face-to-face training courses include topics such as news gathering, storytelling, engagement, sustainability, investigative and data journalism, and multimedia storytelling.
