iMeedan

iMeedan is a partnership project, led by Meedan, a non-profit social technology company registered in California. Working on the project are Tim Wall, Paul Bradshaw, and Noha Atef from BCU’s Interactive Cultures team, and other partners include independent Egyptian news organisation AlMasry AlYoum. The project is funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).

The iMeedan project focuses on improving (in a small way!) media plurality in Egypt, through a technological intervention and some training. The iMeedan system allows users to translate news information to and from Arabic, and to assess the reliability of source material that they encounter online. Citizen journalists are being trained to use the technology, and AlMasry AlYoum aim to incorporate citizen journalism into the context of more traditional journalistic practice – the newspaper. The Interactive Cultures team are helping with the design and delivery of training material, and will evaluate the project’s success, both as an intervention and in terms of the broader intellectual context of media and democracy. The project activity and its evaluation will also contribute to Noha’s PhD research.