The ‘Fifth Power’ Media Hackathon Named the Winners of 2019 Edition

The 4 teams that developed the best media applications and convinced the jury of their importance are:

1. ‘Hai sa încercam’ [Let's try] – an application that will convert audio and video recordings in Romanian into text.
2. START – creating a multimedia tool that involves the combination of audio, sound and video.
3. Locals – creating a platform that would facilitate the interaction between journalists, cameramen, technicians, IT specialists in creating media content.
4. LABS 42 – developing an application that would moderate the uncensored comments or the ones that incite hatred.

The teams were awarded USD 4,250 each. The projects are to be finalised in the coming months, after which they will be officially launched for the general public.

The jury members said that all the ideas that have entered the contest deserved to be appreciated, but only four teams could be awarded.

‘I encourage the non-winning teams not to give up on their ideas because there are a lot of funding opportunities. If your ideas are good, you must fight for them’, said Angela Vacaru, Regional Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist, Internews.
 
The mentor from Russia, Ivan Pecisev, talked to each winning team and said that their ideas were truly valuable. ‘I am sure that these projects can add value to the journalistic activity. We tried to advice the participants proceeding from the journalists’ needs. I think the winning teams took into account our recommendations the most’, said Ivan Pecisev. 
 
The projects were judged by Gulim Amirkhanova – editor-in-chief at ‘Три точки. Знай, что смотришь’ [Three points. Know what you watch], regional manager at Internews, Angela Vacaru – Regional Monitoring and Assessment Specialist, Internews, Tatiana Etco – journalist at Radio Free Europe, Dan Eftodi – IT specialist, Nicu Cuschevici – editor at the portal of journalistic investigations RISE Moldova.
 
The 5^th edition of ‘The Fifth Power’ Media Hackathon is organised by the Independent Journalism Center under ‘Media Enabling Democracy, Inclusion and Accountability in Moldova (MEDIA-M)’ Project, funded by USAID and UK aid and implemented by Internews in Moldova.