Chicas Poderosas is turning 5 years old
Hello Chicas Poderosas crew, we are about to launch in yet another adventure together!
We’ll be celebrating the completion of the New Ventures Lab 2017/18 with 3-days of inspiration, collaboration and celebration. We’re gathering at the Google Sao Paulo’s offices, who have been there for us from day one giving us throughout the 17-week program. We’ll have the demo day on May 25th, for all the ten startups to show and tell what they’ve been up to along 2018, bringing their independent news organisations to the next level.
Chicas Poderosas ambassadors are the reason why Chicas actually exists and is such a powerful network, they are those women and men who have ran that extra mile, many times, to bring more opportunities to their communities, engaging women in leadership roles, sharing their technological skills in cross boarder digital journalism projects, investigations, campaigns for change, and overall a little revolution in what is “expected” from us, women, we are re-defining our role in society.
We are stepping forward, and there are many of us wanting to make this world a better place, step by step, we’ll all get there, together!
Ambassadors from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, The North Triangle – El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, Mexico, Venezuela, Portugal and USA are gathering in Sao Paulo to share what they’ve been working on, what community activities have they developed. This is an opportunity to exchange ideas, cross the projects where they make sense and immerse everyone in what is the New Ventures Lab, so we can hope one day to spread the program across these countries. For that we need leaders to make it happen, so gathering all this power in one place will be key.
I cannot wait to see everyone there!
As we could not leave them behind, some of the this year’s NVL mentors are joining the party to see their alumni rock the stage and to share what they have been working on. As Chicas Poderosas is really strong in bridging talent and needs, we’ll have the magic potion for upcoming new initiatives that come out of serendipity, yes, we’re still invested in let the magic happen ✨
From around the globe we’ll have the following agenda:
May 23
Chicas Poderosas NVL teams will do a wrap up and get to know the ambassadors, sharing their projects and receiving the last bits of feedback before demo day
May 24
We will have an inspirational day of presentations and Q&A with our mentors and ambassadors from all around the globe who will be sharing what they’re working on, opening for collaboration.
May 25
NVL demo day: the ten start ups will present their independent news organisations to a board of VCs, investors, business angels and the entire Chicas Poderosas community.
This is an invite only event for now, but will be showcased in film afterwards.
We’re wrapping up what has been an amazing journey of 2017/18, while preparing what’s next for Chicas Poderosas. We are celebrating 5 years and we believe we’re just starting, there’s a lot more to come, if you want to get involved, make sure you get our newsletter so you don’t miss a thing.
About the 10 startups of NVL Brazil’18
AJURI AGENCY
WHO: Jéssica Botelho, Agda Sales, Polyandra Batista & Nathane Dovale
WHAT & WHY: Ajuri Agency is a fact-checking agency. It’s one of the pioneers providing journalistic content based on verified information with content focusing on the Amazon. We believe that verified information creates the foundation for the public to enjoy the right to information and exercise their citizenship. Our goal is to combat, above all, misinformation about the Amazon.
#LETSTALK #VAMOSCONVERSAR
WHO: Ana Addobbati & Janaína Lima
WHAT & WHY: We live in a time when time is shorter than ever. Therefore, if you want to capture the audience, information should be offered in a graphic format and take no longer than 5s to be decoded. With haters proliferating in social media – the new battlefield for ideas – and with conversations taking place on these channels that are underpinned by algorithms that connect people who have common thoughts, we have the phenomenon of bubbles of opinion. Leaving the comfort zone to debate in a diverse online space becomes a heroic task. We believe that encouraging these conversations can lead for a more tolerant, empathic and enriched society. And our goal is to make it with fun and educational.
Letstalk is a competitive game that will reward the player who has the best debate skills, not the right opinion, based on high score. By rewarding, it is our conviction that we will be able to motivate them. By offering the opportunity to discuss hot topics in the media, we will make it appealing and use the best of the current and available repertoire in society. We will educate participants by driving them to learn in a gaming format how to pose a logical argument, the emotional coefficient and what is expected during a quality debate. By automating the scoring with a bot, we will be able to scale usage and provide a safer environment for residential, school and other environments
1 MIN 1/2
WHO: Carolina Nogueira
WHAT & WHY: Peoples’ distrust in politics is only useful to politicians who despise public opinion. Our newsletter will lead readers to understand what’s going on in the Congress and provide a way to act quickly and easily so we can have our voices heard and empower the public in democracy.
ADA.VC
WHO: Diana Assennato, Dimitria Coutinho, Emily Canto Nunes & Natasha Madov
WHAT & WHY: Ada was an existing blog for two years before it was put on hold. We are back with them aim of being more than just a blog. Ada is a tech website made by women who want to share their female perspective on topics normally covered from the perspective of men. Currently, tech coverage is non-inclusive, speaking to an audience that already understands its subject, which also happens usually to be men.
Solution: Therefore we imagine ourselves as a safe space for women who want to absorb tech content and have not found a place for that to happen. We would like to pass on our knowledge so that every woman can understand the technology they use on a daily basis. This is an industry where women are still highly underrepresented, so we want to share projects that focus on helping women get into the tech industry. Tech is a big industry and Ada is willing to give women a voice and place.
CULTURADORIA
WHO: Carolina Braga, Brenda Antunes, Breno Ribeiro e Thiago Fonseca
WHAT & WHY: If you want to buy an online ticket for a concert or a play in Brazil, you have to find the right link or look at least 18 different websites. It’s a lot.
Today Culturadoria is an online media project dedicated to curating information about arts and entertainment in Belo Horizonte, southeast Brazil. What Culturadoria already has been doing is offering a choice of art and culture to the North.
Culturadoria has been developing software to help a middle- to high-income Brazilian audience find, choose and buy tickets to highly-recommended shows, plays and movies – all on the same platform. We are creating and curating a specialized marketplace for entertainment in Brazil.
POLITIZAP
WHO: Maria Martha Bruno, Aline Boueri, Lucas Thaynan, Micaelle Moraes
WHAT & WHY: Rio de Janeiro is under military intervention. One and a half million people there live in the favelas and are underrepresented in politics. The recent murder of City Council member Marielle Franco has made this evident. In these communities, people often work two jobs, face daily shootings and other violence, and have no sanitation in their homes.
Based on our research, we have learned that the problem of under representation is strongly correlated to a lack of political education. Political education starts with being well informed on the main social debates. PolitiZap is journalism and political education site. We will adapt and curate regular news and turn it to simple images, gifs or one-minute audio files that will pop up in the WhatsApp, Telegram and Facebook Messenger apps of our users. They will have free, fast and high-quality information on which they can base their political decisions.
TROPICA
WHO: Cristina Arboleda Puente & Isabel González Ramírez
WHAT & WHY: Homophobic bullying is the main cause of suicide among sexually-diverse people around the world. In Latin America, 12 women are murdered every day just because they are women. In Ecuador, around 20,000 girls under the age of 14 were forced to give birth between 2009 and 2016.
The first step to change the situation is to reveal the level of violence directed at women. So we decided to create a digital media outlet that specializes in research, offers data and explores narratives about sexual rights in Ecuador and Colombia. Our journalism is diverse in voices, seeks social impact and promotes advocacy so that people have opportunities and a life free from violence that targets gender and sexual identity.
MALQUERIDA
WHO: Ana Muñoz, Natalia Sánchez, Estefani Campana, Lucía Chuquillanqui
WHAT & WHY: Journalism is a patriarchal structure. On the one hand, there is misrepresentation of women in media: Only one in four people quoted or read about in the news is a woman. On the other hand, women are marginalized and blocked from decision-making positions. Fewer than three in 10 of the top management jobs in media are held by women.
We are creating a community of female journalists who can become leaders and want to be the rule and not the exception. We are taking and reframing a space that also belongs to us while delivering to our readers stories told by a different voice, because the voice of the journalist matters.
AGÊNCIA RESPOSTA
WHO: Luiza Bandeira and Anna Carolina Cardoso
WHAT & WHY: Resposta grew out of the perception that the public sees journalism as excessively negative and as a result, they stop reading the news. For news outlets, this leads to a reduction in readership and consequently, to a drop in ad revenue. At the same time, this negative perception makes people turn away from the news, undermining journalism’s relevance and compromising its fundamental role in the public debate.
Resposta’s proposal is to rebalance the narrative and to reconnect readers with journalism. It is a solutions-oriented journalism news agency. It will produce and sell articles focusing on successful policies to attract readers, helping media outlets in search of a larger, more-loyal audience and contributing to a better inform society that is in a position to strengthen democracy.
EL BÚHO
WHO: Mabel Cáceres, Erick Rodríguez, José Luis Márquez
WHAT & WHY: The crisis of the traditional model of journalism based on the sale of advertising space presents a problem. At the same time, it offers an opportunity. After 18 years of doing traditional journalism in print, we have decided to migrate to the digital world. We will innovate the journalism we do and the ways we finance our work by focusing on the audience to guarantee independence. Everything will be new and better, except our commitment to the community of Arequipa (Peru) and the truth and quality they deserve.
About the mentors
AKOTO OFORI-ATTA
Senior Editor, The Trace, @Ko_616
Akoto Ofori-Atta is the senior editor of The Trace, an independent, nonprofit news organization founded in June 2015 to expand reporting on gun violence in the United States. In her role, Akoto manages The Trace’s partnership and outreach initiatives, and also spearheads special editorial projects. She holds a bachelor’s degree in print journalism from Hampton University and a master’s degree in Communications, Culture and Technology from Georgetown University. She was a 2015 JSK fellow at Stanford University
ISHITA KAPUR
Senior Product Manager, AltspaceVR, Microsoft, @ikapur
Passionate about human-centric design, storytelling, and building transformative experiences with immersive technology and interactive media.
MICHU BENAIM
CEO / Creative Chief, In-House International,
@Michubenaim
Michu is a Venezuela-born entrepreneur, strategist, artist and editor with a passion for storytelling. She’s currently the CEO and creative chief at In-House International, a creative company solving problems through design, copy, and code. There, she leads the studio and In-House’s awesome team by setting creative and business strategy. She wears many hats to feed her curiosity, and makes things–mostly with people, always through stories. Over the years, she’s founded culture magazines (three to date), a civic app, worked as a journalist, sat on a few boards and adopted an infinity of ‘indoor-kid‘ hobbies. Asking questions and collaborating are both at the core of her design practice. She has a B.A. in philosophy and comparative literature from UNC Chapel Hill and an M.B.A. from the McCombs School of Business in the University of Texas at Austin. She frequently speaks about art and creativity, being female in business, entrepreneurship, leadership, and other ships.
BRIAN BOYER
VP Product and People, Spirited Media, @brianboyer
Brian Boyer is the Vice President of Product and People at Spirited Media. Previously, he was the Visuals Editor at NPR, and founded the News Applications team at Chicago Tribune. Before his career in news, Brian led software design and development teams.
MARTIM PELLECER
Director, Nómada (nomada.gt), @revolufashion
He is the director and CEO of Nómada. He is Guatemalan, persevering and cheerful. He started in journalism in 2001 in letters from readers. In 2011 he founded Plaza Pública for the URL, and in 2014, Nómada. He studied a bachelor’s degree at the UFM and a master’s degree in Latin American Studies at the UAM. She was a finalist of the FNPI award in 2013 and 2017. She won the national journalism prize in 2004 and 2017. He is a polyglot and feminist.
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