Page 33 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2016

ImpactThe Chicas movement has facilitated events where women journalists can collaboratewith tech, design and thematic experts and use data for in-depth, interactive reporting projects.• With more than 2,500 members, Chicas Poderosas is forging a network of women journalists across the Americas who have the skills and support to bring diverse voices into newsrooms and the public conversation.• Over 15 months, Chicas Poderosas held 17 training events, connecting its members with mentors from such cutting-edge media organisations as The New YorkTimes, ProPublica, The Guardian, NPR, and La Nación (Costa Rica). To date, we have organised Chicas boot camps in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Italy, Mexico, the United States and Venezuela.• As an outgrowth of the 2015 Chicas Leadership Summit at Stanford University, ve locally-led Chicas chapters are starting to form and build a support network across Latin America: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico.• As a result of the Chicas Poderosas movement, teams of Latina journalists, developers and designers have created more than 70 interactive data projects, from visualising the campaign spending11of Colombian presidential candidates and creating an app to help citizens verify the claims of 2014 presidential candidates in Costa Rica, to mapping the pollution in Brazil’s Guanabara Bay12 in the run-up to the 2016 Olympic Games.• Thanks to Chicas Poderosas, women are taking on leadership positionsin their newsrooms, improving their career trajectories and spearheading entrepreneurial ventures. As a result:► Leading Colombian daily El Espectador hired its rst developer – a woman – to improve interactive design.► Animal Politico, a top Mexican online news publication, hired a young Chicas member as its top editor.► Another Mexican female participant became the head of the data journalism unit at her country’s biggest newspaper, El Universal.► Chicas Ambassador Carolina Astuyais creating an ‘innovation lab’ hostedat MQLTV in Chile. In January 2016,the lab will o er workshops on storytelling, mobile, visualisation, microreports and house data and digital content.► A Chilean woman became head of digital media at Chilevision, earning $710 more monthly. In 2016, she and her husband will launch El Soberano, a digital platform that will allow citizens to contact their local civil society organizations to nd critical information on issues such as urban development, crime and water sanitation.Mariana Santos and ICFJ are committed to strengthening and expanding the Chicas movement in cities and countries across the Americas and helping women become media leaders and in uencers in shaping the future of the news industry.ConclusionAs the world is turning into a huge digital hub, the Internet is the place where most heritageis recorded, where a deep understanding canbe gleaned and where it can be attempted to spread it. With globalisation, having a place where culture doesn’t get lost, but instead has the opportunity to be re-created and re-invented – the Internet – plays a huge role in connecting people, ideas, cultures and knowledge.AC/E DIGITAL CULTURE ANNUAL REPORT 201633Smart Culture: Impact of the Internet on Artistic Creation