Moldova.org team – Winner of the Media Innovations Laboratory in Kiev

The Canal Regional television station, Moldova.org and Locals.md portals are the three media outlets from Moldova that took part in the Media Innovations Laboratory “Gamification and Public Engagement” held on November 16 to 18. Reporters from three countries – Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova – worked together on developing models and tools which would help the media use multimedia content more actively and increase participation of the online public. The jury awarded prizes to three teams, one from each country: Moldova.org (Moldova), TvoyeMisto (Ukraine), and IFact (Georgia).

During three days the participants of the Media Innovations Laboratory presented their gamification tools and learned how they can be integrated into media websites to boost public interest. The teams, consulted and mentored by experts, also developed ideas of public engagement projects.

In the end, the jury designated three winners: Moldova.org (Moldova), TvoyeMisto (Ukraine), and IFact (Georgia). The team from Moldova intends to boost interaction with the public through a plug-in, which may be integrated in any Wordpress platform. IFact is developing a game through which it plans to raise public awareness to the issues of urban planning in Tbilisi and which is part of an investigative journalism project start-up. TvoyeMisto will develop a mobile app, called “Your City,” helping active citizens access information of major public interest. At the same time, the interactive design of the app will stimulate interaction with users.

Each of the winning teams will be offered a grant of USD 2,000 and two months to implement their projects.

“The opportunity to participate in this Laboratory and the fact that we are among the winners will allow us to develop a useful tool for both Moldova.org and the entire journalistic community, for which it is vital to have a close relationship with readers,” said Ana Gherciu, Moldova.org reporter.

“The Kiev laboratory had an educational component: we learned more about gamification, which is little used in our country,” added her colleague Victoria Colesnic.