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29-30 October 2014

APA - FJUM Editors Lab

The organizers, the jury, the partner and the winning teams

Introduction

The Global Editors Network (GEN) is a community dedicated to media innovation supported
by 20,000+ media innovators. More than 2,500 of those media innovators participate in GENs
yearly programmes and GENs annual conference called the GEN Summit. GEN represents the
leading media of the world and organises events bringing together the best newsrooms and
opinion leaders of the industry.
Austria Presse Agentur (APA) is the national Austrian news agency and the leading
information provider in Austria.
Forum journalism und medien wien (FJUM) is a non profit media institution founded in 2011. It
offers high-quality trainings, panel discussions, events and congresses as well as in-house
trainings to European media professionals.
Google have been strategic partners of the Global Editors Network since GEN's inception in
2011.

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Table of content
The GEN Editors Lab Programme .. 3
APA - FJUM Editors Lab .. 3
GEN Editors Lab

The Winner 4
Two Special Mentions . 6
GEN Partnership with Google

Best Tweets 8
Survey . 9
Stats 9
Press . 10

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The GEN Editors Lab Programme

The Editors Lab Hackdays is one of GENs key programmes in bringing innovation to the
newsroom. It is a worldwide series of Hackdays hosted by the worlds leading news
organisations such as The New York Times, The Guardian, El Pas to name a few. The Editors
Lab brings together developers, journalists and designers from the Global Editors Network
representing the best newsrooms from the city where it is being held.
During two days, teams build news prototypes around a theme linked to the latest trends in
media innovation. After two intense working days, teams build their projects in front of a jury who
give their verdict after the presentations. The climax of the season is the crowning of the overall
Editors Lab Final Winner which gathers each national Editors Lab Winner at the GEN Summit.

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APA - FJUM Editors Lab

Dates and Location!

The Editors Lab took place on October 29th - 30th at APA Headquarters.

The Theme!
The theme of this Editors Lab was From User Engagement to Civic Engagement. How can news
organizations inspire their online communities to become more civically involved and to engage
in designing solutions and taking action ?

The Teams!

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The Jury!
- Christina Elmer, Data Journalist at Spiegel Online

- Daniela Kraus, Director of FJUM

- Evangline de Bourgoing, Programme Manager at Global Editors Network

The Speakers !
At the Editors Lab, three training sessions alternated with the working sessions.

- Wolfgang Fasching-Kapfenbergrer, Communications & Public Affairs Manager at Google

Austria gave a workshop about how to best use Google Tools to encourage civic
engagement.

- Peter Parycek, Head of the Center for E-Governance at the Danube University Krems and
Chairman of the ministerial working groups E-Democracy & E-participation and EGovernment Training at the Austrian Federal Chancellery, gave a workshop about how to
best use data to improve civic involvement.

- Ludovic Blecher, Director of FINP (the Digital Innovation Press Fund), presented the latest

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trends in French digital media at the beginning of the award ceremony.

The Winner !

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Datum won the Editors Lab with their project : Traces we revive history. This project is an
author and user driven platform that gives a face to the Viennese nazi victims between 1938
and 1945.
The project starts by giving a short introduction to Viennas history at this period. For every year
between 1938 and 1945, the users are provided with a summary of the crimes of Nazism and
can see appearing on a map of Vienna dots located at the addresses of nazi victims killed
during this year.
Then the users are free to explore the map. They can zoom and search for specific addresses.
They can activate each dot and find the basic data of the nazi victim - name, date of birth, date
of deportation, place and date of death-.
The users are also invited to help fill the victims profiles by adding extra information and a
picture. These contributions will be moderated.

The jury considered that the Austrian audience could greatly benefit from this simple and
gripping way to understand the scale of the nazism crimes. They praised also its attempt to
humanize the victims by transforming numbers into stories with the help of the users. This
project has a great potential. For the moment, it only focuses on Vienna but it could cover the
whole of Austria. The profiles of the nazi victims could become richer thanks to the
contributions of scholars, students and victims family members. The visualization could also
become more interactive by adding additional ways to sort the victims profiles.

The winning team

A screencap of Traces, the winning prototype

Two special mentions

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Russmedia received a special mention for their project : Karma Chameleon. Karma
Chameleon is a free application where the users can offer and ask for free help in their
neighborhoods. It is a marketplace for acts of kindness. Charitable organizations or
other non-profits and individuals can ask for help for specific events such as a blood
donation for the Red Cross or a move. The users also have the opportunity to ask
questions on a discussion board and get advice from other users (who can either
answer with their full name or anonymously) and specialists on this topic. The reward
for the users are Karma-Points.
The jury saw a great potential in this project. They praised it as a quick and flexible way
to meet the needs of local communities. They believed it fitted perfectly with
Russmedias local readership.

ORF received a special mention for the project : UrnenRun. UrnenRun aims to
encourage more people to use their right to vote. First, UrnenRun allows its users to
quickly access information on where they can vote by either typing in their address or
by navigating on a map showing all the polling stations. Secondly, once the users have
cast their votes, they can fill out a simple form on the website with the location of the
station, a picture of themselves at the station (or just of the polling station) and a bet on
the turnout of the elections at their own polling station. After filling out this form, an
image based on the picture and the bet is generated and can be shared on ORF web
app and via social media platforms. All the pictures uploaded by the users will be
displayed on ORF website and geo-referenced on a map to visualize where people
have already voted. The pictures will also be featured on the live Election-newscast,
especially in the timeframe before 5:00 pm. It will create additional suspense, since
ORF is not allowed to communicate turnout rates before the last polling stations have
closing at 5:00 pm.

The jury thought UrnenRun could be a good way to make voting more playful. They
also considered this project as a smart idea to bridge digital and broadcast in general
and in particular to feed the broadcast election coverage before ORF is allowed to
disclose turnout rates or election results.

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GEN partnership with Google

Google was official partner for the APA - FJUM Editors Lab Hackdays and brought invaluable
knowledge to all the participating teams.
Google have been proud and engaged strategic partners of the Global Editors Network since
GEN's inception in 2011. Googles mission to organize the worlds information and make it
universally accessible and useful compliments GEN's focus on converging, sharing and
innovating. As GEN strategic partners Google have been strong supporters of GEN
programmes, in particular the GEN Editors Lab, attending national Hackdays across the globe
in the first three seasons of the programme.
On the first morning of the event, a masterclass was given by Wolfgang FaschingKapfenberger, Communications & Public Affairs Manager at Google Austria. He presented the
participants with Googles resources that they could use to build their prototypes. Google
Hangouts on Air, Google Public Data Explorer, Google Maps Gallery, Google Civic Information
API, Google Media Tools.

Wolfgang Fasching-Kapfenberger announcing the winner

Best tweets !

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Awards Ceremony

Survey
A selection of the answers of our post-event survey

How would you describe your experience as a whole ? !

- Inspiring
- Something completely new - interesting and manifold
- It is a great opportunity to have two days when you can just think outside the box !
- Well-organized, well-hosted

What was the most useful part of the event for you? Why? !
- () Nice networking and rethinking society and problems. Very interesting to have
different workshops.
- Working together & getting feedback from other people of the industry
- Work in a new team (of our company), see different approaches, meet people from
the other teams

What did you learn during those two days?!

- Time management. New development skills and of course the interaction with nondev(elopers) teammates.
- Thats possible to work on a project in a very short time with people I hardly knew
before
- Focus and work to the point

What did you think about the pitch session ?!

- Perfectly done and very interesting
- Presentations were great
- Interesting - Tough - Exciting

Any suggestions to improve our programme !

- More time for socializing !
- The theme shouldnt be announced in advance
- All nighter !

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Stats

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Twitter : 271 tweets with #EditorsLab ScribbleLive : 256 unique visitors on our liveblog. Average time spent on the live-blog : 30
minutes.
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Press

APA - OTS. Vienna Hackdays: Magazin

Datum gewinnt nationalen Wettbewerb.
October 31 2014.

APA - OTS. Reposted by Der Standard and

futurezone.at "Wir mssen Journalismus neu
denken.

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APA Photo Service. Selection of pictures.
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APA - OTS. Reposted by Der Standard.

Geschichtsauffrischung: "Datum"-Team
gewann "Vienna Hackdays. October 31 2014.

Der Standard. "Wir mssen Journalismus neu

denken. October 27 2014. This article was
reposted by futurezone.at

Falter. Print article in the n43 issue. October

22 2014. Page 20.

Kleine Zeitung. Ludovic Blecher bei Vienna.

October 27 2014

Horizont. Vienna Hackdays' - Journalismus

neu denken. October 31 2014.

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To sponsor, host or participate in GEN Editors Lab!

Evangeline de Bourgoing, Programme Manager

edebourgoing@globaleditorsnetwork.org
+33153012161
More about the Global Editors Network: www.globaleditorsnetwork.org

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