Expert conference
Details
By Anja Luchtefeld
Highway Africa, the biggest gathering of media practitioners, private companies and NGOs in Africa, took place in Grahamstown from 11 to 15 September. Each year, more than 500 delegates from across the globe attend the prestigious conference to discuss issues relating to Internet governance, ICT policy and media for democracy. This year Highway Africa reflected on and celebrated the past ten years while forecasting the future of the conference.
The KAS Media programme gave nine mid-career journalists an opportunity to attend the conference by providing scholarships. The scholars from Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana not only participated in diverse discussions, workshops and book launches, but also reported on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) issues for the conference’s print and online media outlets.
The Highway Africa News Agency (HANA) served as a platform for the journalists to understand, use and report on ICTs. Guided by experienced online-editors the scholars wrote and edited stories which were released on the HANA website. They also provided articles for the conference-newspaper Open Source.
"The conference was an eye-opener to me in terms of using ICT,” said Zimbabwean business journalist, Shakeman Mugari. “The workshops and my work at HANA showed me the various opportunities the internet is giving journalists. The tricks and hints I learnt will improve the quality and depth of my investigative reporting."
The launch of Business Unusual gender and economic reporting manual was a conference highlight for four scholars. Malawians Vincent Phiri (Capital Radio) and Susan Sisya (Malawi TV) and Zambians Derrick Sinjela (freelance photojournalist), and Perpetual Sichikwenkwe (LRF News) qualified for the HA scholarship after they were judged to have been the top achievers at the Business Unusual workshops hosted in their countries this year.
The Business Unusual workbook was developed within a workshop series, that focused on the role and contribution of women in the economy. Through discussion, writing exercises and case studies financial journalists are helped to mainstream gender in their reporting and interrogation of finance, business and economic stories.
For more information please visit Highway Africa