Google wants to give Africans R1.3m each for news-business ideas, amid Australian war

Applications have just opened for a new round of a Google-funded scheme to help media organisations in the African region improve their revenues – as tech giants fight it out with Australia about funding news.

The Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge offers up to $150,000 (R2.2 million) in funding for selected ideas, though that is not a hard limit; “pecial discretion on the total project cap may be considered” if the “scale and impact of a very large collaborative effort” warrants it.

In the first round of grants awarded in early 2020, Google spent the equivalent of around R28 million on projects in 30 countries across Africa, the Middle East and Turkey, at an average of some R1.35 million per project.

For the 2021 GNI Innovation Challenge, the focus is very much on the money. Grants are open to any organisations that “aim to produce innovative, original journalism and to enlighten citizens with trustworthy journalistic content, whose projects focus on encouraging a more sustainable news ecosystem.”

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