We’re excited to announce that Global Editors Network, in partnership with Journalism.co.uk, is launching Startups for News 2018! This amazing competition selects early-stage news startups with innovative products or services to media companies and accelerate their development through exposure, connections, and mentorship.

Does this sound great to you too? It gets better…

How does it work?

Startups for News is an international competition that rewards the best startups bringing novel solutions to newsroom challenges. Each year, an international jury selects 16 startups, who will face off in online pitch battles. The 8 finalists will be invited to the GEN Summit in Lisbon, where they will get to pitch in front of 800 editors-in-chief and media executives.

How does Startups for News support the journalism community?

Startups for News’s mission is to create a bridge between startups and legacy media – two worlds whose relationship could be highly beneficial but which is often too strained or, sometimes, non-existent.

Helping under-resourced newsrooms develop quality journalism

Too often newsrooms lack the financial and technical resources to build, in-house, the tools they need to create and distribute quality content. Startups for News introduce them to cutting-edge and easy-to-use tools that can accelerate their work and are compatible with their values.

Promoting an entrepreneurial spirit in newsrooms

Startups For News provides not only provides our network with new products but also with a different perspective on media innovation. It promotes an entrepreneurial, prototype-driven, and a “fail forward” approach. It inspires media executives to make their newsroom a more product and user-centric organization.

The Startups for News 2018 jury is out..

Their jury line-up for this year is really impressive! They are:

• Catalina Albeanu – journalism.co.uk
• Greg Barber – Washington Post
• Mariano Blejman – Grupo Octubre
• Evangeline de Bourgoing – Global Editors Network
• David Cohn – Advance Digital
• Ricardo Corredor Cure – Gabriel Garcia Marquez New Journalism Foundation
• Chris Gathercole – Financial Times
• Mohammed Haddad – Al Jazeera
• Ferial Haffajee – Huffington Post SA
• Turi Munthe – North Base Media
• Oluseun Onigbinde – BudgIT
• Jacqui Park – The Walkley Foundation
• Latoya Peterson – ESPN
• Kalli Pure – India Today Group
• Noemi Ramirez – PRISA News
• Maria Ressa – Rappler
• Dmitry Shishkin – BBC

Does your startup qualify?

If you want to enter, all you need is to meet the following requirements:

• your startup should not have been founded before 2014
• you should not have received over $1 million in investment
• you have to be a news startup

That’s all folks!

Want to apply?