Google News Initiative announced ARIJ as a winner of this year’s GNI Innovation Challenge in the Middle East, Africa and Turkey. 

The project, “AI Lab: A Starter Guide to AI-powered Media in MENA Region”, aims at facilitating and promoting the development of an AI Strategy tailored to journalistic entities in the Arab World through producing an open-source Arabic language Starter Manual for small to medium media outlets and fact-checking units to build their own AI Strategy tailored to their needs and challenges.

The call for applications this year listed five criteria: impact on the news ecosystem; innovation; diversity, equity and inclusion; inspiration; and feasibility. This Innovation Challenge saw a significant increase in applications from news organisations undertaking fact checking activities: an increase of 118% when compared to previous Innovation Challenges in the region. Proposed projects which use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) also showed significant growth (92%).

This year’s edition, announced in February 2022, received 425 projects. After a rigorous review, a round of interviews and a final jury selection process, 34 projects were selected from 17 countries to receive $3.2 million in funding.