Jawhara FM Editors Lab

On 4-5 December 2015, Jawhara FM and GEN, with support from the du Google News Lab, KnowledgeView, the IINA, the Ecole polytechnique Sousse and CFI gathered the best Tunisian media innovators in Sousse for the "Jawhara FM Editors Lab", a hackathon to develop innovative news prototypes.
The theme of the competition was "Innovate to Better Cover Tourism in Tunisia."
Attendees enjoyed presentations from Ali Al-Assam, CEO of Knowledge View ltd, as well as Abdellatif Mahmoud, from the World Association for Hospitality and Tourism Education and Training ( AMFORHT).

The winning team, from École Polytechnique de Sousse, is invited to take part in the Editors Lab Final in Vienna at the GEN Summit on 15-17 June 2016.
Team members, including Mayssa Chebbi, Sofa Naoui and Mohamed Mziou, created a project called "Explore Tunisia" which helps users discover unknown parts of Tunisia, a country whose tourism is too often constrained to seaside activities.
This Androidapp aims at broadening the scope of tourism in Tunisia, thanks to users' own editorial contribution as well as statistics on tourism in Tunisia.

Explore Tunisia

"We'd like people visiting our country to be able to look at Tunisia in a more innovative way, far from the usual clichés about tourism in Tunisia. We want users of Explore Tunisia to get a fresh look at the country, as if they were looking through the eyes of local people," Mayssa Chebbi explains.

The attendees were encouraged to produce an online prototype tackling the following questions:
• How can we better understand and visualise the changes in tourism flows in Tunisia (number of tourists, countries of origin, destination)?
• How can we shed more light on the economic and social consequences of the tourism crisis?
• How can we find new ways to report on security issues related to tourism?
• What can we envision for the future of tourism in the country?

The Jawhara FM Editors Lab is part of a series of international hackdays hosted by worldrenowned media organisations such as the New York Times, The Guardian, El Pais, Clarín, Le Parisien, and others.

You can find details of the event as it went on the liveblog, projects that were created by all the teams on our community site, and pictures of the teams on Flickr.

Other Participating Teams:

Special mention for editorial quality of the project:
• Hear It From The Expat is a portal where tourists can find testimonials from expats living in Tunisia.
• Tunisia Smile is a mobile app enabling Tunisian citizens to share their tourism experiences via pictures and videos, based on geolocalisation.
• World Peacezz is an interactive online quiz game aiming at changing people's perception on a given country.
• Tunisia Trip Rewards aims at getting tourists to express their needs thanks to a playful app, based on opinion polls.

Special mention for quality of user experience:
• Simply Tunisia is a mobile site targeting people visiting Tunisia, and providing local information as well as guided tours.
• Tunisian Dream is a tool enabling users to create Tunisan holidays tailored to their interests.

A Prize for the Winning Team:
The winning team, from École polytechnique de Sousse, will compete against other Editors Lab winners from season four during the Editors Lab Final — the World Cup of Newsroom Innovation.
The latter will be held at the GEN Summit 2016 in Vienna on 15-17 June 2016.

Additional Information:
The Global Editors Network (GEN) is a cross-platform community empowering newsrooms through programmes designed to inspire, connect and share.

Jawhara FM Tunisie is a privately-owned Tunisian radio station broadcasting music and news. It is an Arabic-language station and its studios are located in Sousse, one of the most beautiful holiday destinations along the Mediterranean coast.