With a record number of international, regional, and local guests, Latin America’s leading media innovation conference welcomed over 2,000 attendees from more than 30 countries. The final day awarded $14,000 in prizes.
BUENOS AIRES, August 27, 2022 — Following three days of keynotes, lightning talks, workshops, and a Media Fair as diverse as it was engaging, the 10th edition of Media Party concluded with its traditional hackathon. On this final day, programmers, designers, and journalists collaborated to develop tools, products, and services, with three projects awarded a total of $14,000 in prizes.
The gathering at Ciudad Cultural Konex drew over 2,000 participants from more than 30 countries. Saturday featured the classic hackathon closing, this year focused on Web3, decentralized technologies, and metaverses. It was an intensive session of creativity, design, and product development aimed at solving real organizational challenges, regardless of participant experience levels or programming languages.
The winning projects were Letther, Willa, and DataDao, with Observatorio de Medios receiving a special mention. Letther expands the Web3 knowledge base to bridge the gap for newcomers. Willa addresses a real-world challenge in journalistic practice, particularly for freelancers, presenting a practical tech use case. DataDao uses transcriptions to help journalists write and discover relevant video content that would otherwise be difficult to access. Meanwhile, Observatorio de Medios leverages machine learning to analyze coverage of specific issues in a decentralized, unbiased manner.
The hackathon was made possible with support from the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and the Decentraland DAO grant program.
In previous editions, participants with backgrounds in journalism or civic activism have contributed creative, high-impact ideas to revolutionize the media sector. The Media Party hackathon served as the birthplace for the mate emoji and has incubated projects spanning modeled journalism, virtual reality, and music identity mapping.
Media Party Recap
Latin America’s largest media innovation conference kicked off Thursday hosted by Aron Pilhofer, former executive at The New York Times, and Trei Brundrett, Senior Advisor at Vox Media and board member at The Texas Tribune, The McDonald Observatory, and OpenNews. Brundrett delivered the keynote address: “Vox Media: Understanding the News Business.”
Day one also featured more than 40 innovation projects at the Media Fair, including showcases from The Washington Post (led by Aviva Loeb), CLIP (Latin American Center for Journalistic Investigation, led by María Teresa Ronderos), Journo DAO (with Eric Mack), and BAenFoco (by Carolina Repetto and Francisca Ulloa), among many others.
On Friday, international and local leaders reassembled for keynotes and workshops. New trends, newsroom dynamics, investigation, audience experiences, data management, artificial intelligence, blockchain, automation, and media security drove discussions throughout the day.
Keynote highlights included “Newsroom Innovation by Placing Journalism at the Heart of the Product” with Chris Moran from The Guardian News & Media; “Fact-Checking on WhatsApp: New Revenue Models” with Pierre Conti, Head of Product and Strategy at Meedan; and “Newspack: How to Create Content, Grow Your Business, and Serve Your Community Without Tech Headaches” with consultant Fernando Diaz from Newspack.
Additionally, in a panel addressing current media industry challenges, Laura Muchnik (President and Founder of Grupo Muchnik) moderated “The Challenges of Innovation and Media Business in Argentina,” featuring Angel Sotera (Product Manager at Infobae), Javier Kraviez (Chief Digital Officer at Clarín), Ernesto Martelli (Innovation Director at La Nación), and Julián Gallo (digital communication specialist).
Until Next Time!
In total, Media Party gathered over 20 international speakers, nearly 50 Media Fair projects, around 30 lightning talks, and more than 30 parallel workshops over its first two days, drawing a record presence of media outlets, organizations, and entrepreneurs.
This edition was supported by initial main partners Meta Journalism Project, Google News Initiative, ICFJ, Hacks/Hackers, and Telecom as technology sponsor. Media Party is an independent event born out of the Hacks/Hackers Buenos Aires community, supported strategically by Hacks/Hackers global.
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