Ukrainian media outlets kick off 12-week AI accelerator to drive newsroom innovation and build resilience
Originally launched in August with a masterclass series for 40 Ukrainian newsrooms, the meeting marks the beginning of the next stage of the Ukrainian programme. Over a 12-week period, 10 selected Ukrainian newsrooms will develop AI-powered solutions tailored to their specific needs.
During their participation, the publishers will learn about how to build practical AI capabilities with the goal of accelerating innovation across their organisations. The selected cohorts will create and present their AI projects to the other teams and benefit from their collaborative feedback.
Addressing the participants, Tom Rubin, Chief of Intellectual Property and Content at OpenAI, emphasised the core purpose of the collaboration: “The reason why this project is so important to us is that OpenAI’s mission is to create AI for the benefit of humanity,” Rubin said. “And there’s no greater demonstration of that I’ve seen in my years at OpenAI than what we’re doing together.”
“OpenAI is grateful that we have the opportunity to support you with our technology and with our hearts,” he said.
Rubin also delivered a keynote at WAN-IFRA’s Paris AI Forum this week, outlining the importance of independent journalism and how AI can support that, the inception of the Ukrainian programme, and some of the outcomes that have come from its first phase.
The participating media outlets were selected to represent the whole country, considering the diverse challenges facing Ukrainian media, according to Oksana Brovko, Chief Executive Officer of AIRPPU.
“All of you know the conditions in which my colleagues in Ukraine and local media work,” Brovko said.
Reflecting on the programme’s rapid development – first conceived at the WAN-IFRA World News Media Congress in Marseille in June and launched only two months later – she drew a parallel with the challenges faced by Ukrainian media organisations: “This is very important for us. If you work in crisis times, speed and the ability to make important decisions quickly are part of survival.”
The theme of urgency echoed in her message to her Ukrainian colleagues in the programme: “Act, don’t freeze, even though there is a war,” she urged. “We are here to keep the professional motivation across our newsrooms.”
The accelerator will run until the end of the year, at which point the participating publishers will leave the accelerator equipped with a custom AI solution as well as a strategic roadmap for future integration.
The news organisations participating in the Ukrainian Newsroom AI Catalyst Accelerator are:
- Odeske Zhyttia
- OGO.ua
- grivna.ua
- Kremenchutskyi telehraf
- Farvater Skhid
- Dnipro.media
- ZHAR.INFO
- RIA Media
- Novyny Donbasu
- Rayon.in.ua
