Introducing the inaugural cohort of the JournalismAI Skills Lab
The 20 selected participants of the Skills Lab will attend live virtual sessions with instructors over 12 weeks and build their own proofs-of-concept or prototypes.
2025 JournalismAI Skills Lab cohort
We are excited to introduce the inaugural cohort of the JournalismAI Skills Lab, a new educational programme supported by the Google News Initiative. This programme, which is set to equip editorial and product staff with some amount of technical experience, is based on lessons learned from our collaboration experiment programme, the JournalismAI Fellowship.
A key challenge for editorial staff, product and non-technical staff, based on feedback we received from the Fellowship, was in substantially contributing to tech efforts in building AI tools and systems in newsrooms. The Skills Lab is trying to solve this challenge by bridging the gap between AI knowledge and hands-on practice. The ultimate aim is to empower all non-technical staff in advocating for the responsible use of AI by giving them a taste of what it’s like to build these tools.
Tension and excitement go hand-in-hand while launching a new programme. Yet, the response to our callout was incredible. We are pleased (and humbled) to say that we received 417 applications from 95 countries for15 seats in the fully virtual JournalismAI Skills Lab. Given this response, we decided to expand the number of seats available to 20. Participants underwent three rounds of selection.
Today, we’re happy to introduce the 20 candidates from 17 countries who are participating in this inaugural cohort of the programme.
Meet the 2025 Skills Lab cohort
Afore Hsieh (Taiwan)
Afore is a Taiwan based local producer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, covering news in Taiwan and China. With nearly a decade of experience across print, digital, and broadcast in the journalism industry, her work focuses on bridging the gap between journalism and technology. Previously, she worked as a digital producer at United Daily News, where she led teams in editorial, design, and engineering to create award winning digital experiences. Her projects have been recognised both in Taiwan and internationally for their innovation and impact.
Alba Mora Roca (Spain)
Alba Mora Roca is Executive Producer at AJ+, where she leads a 28-person team producing social video that centers the Global South. A newsroom leader with roots in visual storytelling, she has shaped digital strategy at El País América, built multimedia projects at the Associated Press, and now explores the future of multilingual journalism through AI. Her work has earned the Gabriel García Márquez Journalism Prize and POY Latam Multimedia Award. She holds a Master’s from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and often speaks and mentors in journalism forums. When offline, she’s likely snorkeling or hiking the Mediterranean.
Ali Al Ibrahim (Sweden)
Ali Al Ibrahim is an award-winning investigative journalist and the founder of SIRAJ, the Syrian Investigative Reporting for Accountability Journalism unit. With over a decade of experience, he specializes in cross-border investigations into corruption, human rights abuses, and financial misconduct. Ali has collaborated with major global outlets including the BBC, The Guardian, OCCRP, and ICIJ. He is the author of AI in Journalism: Ethics and Best Practices, a TED Fellow and recipient of BBC’s Best Young Journalist 2018 and the Samir Kassir Award 2019 for Freedom of the Press. He is also recognised by the Global Investigative Journalism Network GIJN 2022 and 2024. He was also awarded in Outstanding Investigative Reporting from FJA in 2021 and the AACR June L. Biedler Prize Journalism in the United States in 2023. He is also a journalism trainer and curriculum developer, with a focus on integrating artificial intelligence and OSINT techniques into investigation newsroom practices. He holds a Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Wolverhampton, UK, and is passionate about enhancing investigative journalism through technology and ethical innovation.
Babaji Usman (Nigeria)
Babaji Usman is a Senior Investigative Reporter with WikkiTimes based in Northern Nigeria, with over four years of experience, known for impactful reporting on corruption and human rights violations in Nigeria. His data-driven stories have driven meaningful change, particularly in Northern Nigeria. His career is distinguished by participation in numerous media training programmes and conferences, which have refined his investigative and reporting skills. As a reporter with WikkiTimes’ Collaborative Media (CMEDIA) Project, Babaji has conducted several impactful investigations. He was a 2022 Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) Udeme fellow, a 2024 Fellow with the Ghana-based Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), and a 2025 Fellow with the Kenya-based Baraza Media Lab on Data Storytelling. He earned recognition from Xchange Hama Media for his community impact. He is a Correspondent with LEADERSHIP, a Nigeria-based daily Newspaper and also a Freelancer with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR).
Briana Smith (USA)
Briana Smith is a Senior Digital Analyst at NPR who turns audience data into newsroom action. She manages datasets and dashboards that reveal meaningful insights for decision-making across the organisation, informing headline tests, newsletter strategy, and emerging trends. Briana recently piloted one of NPR’s first explorations into AI workflow tools, sparking conversations about automated metadata. Through recent consulting work with Ordem Insights, she guided community nonprofits toward data-driven storytelling and self-service analytics.
Felice Fen-Chieh Wu ( Taiwan)
Felice FC Wu（伍芬婕）is a researcher on AI & automation at CommonWealth Magazine（天下雜誌）. A former reporter and digital transformation consultant, she now trains reporters and editors on AI applications and develops tools and solutions to empower editorial workflows.
Graciela rock Mora (México)
Graciela Rock is the Editor of La Cadera de Eva, a platform focused on gender, human rights, and social justice, that is part of La Silla Rota Group. She leads editorial strategy and oversees coverage that amplifies diverse voices and underreported issues. Focused in journalism and communication, she is particularly interested in how emerging technologies like generative AI can support ethical storytelling and newsroom innovation.
Mads Ommundsen (Norway)
Mads Ommundsen is a trained journalist currently working as a news developer at Fædrelandsvennen. Passionate about how technology and journalism can work together to deliver a better end product to our users.
Mariam Kukhilava (Georgia)
Mariam Kukhilava is a news reporter from Georgia with over five years of experience covering politics and social issues. She has worked with Euronews Georgia, The European Correspondent, and Euronews Global, bringing stories from the region to an international audience. Mariam is also an alumna of the Oxford Climate Journalism Network, where she explored the intersection of climate and public policy reporting. Her work is driven by a strong commitment to democratic values, social justice, and storytelling that gives voice to underrepresented communities. She brings depth, clarity, and compassion to every story she tells.
Meera K (India)
Meera co-founded Citizen Matters, an award-winning civic media platform focusing on critical urban issues, ideas and solutions for cities. Meera K is co-founder and Trustee at Oorvani Foundation, a non-profit committed to civic engagement, citizenship and urban communities. Meera also helped initiate Open City, a civic-tech project for urban data. She is an Ashoka Fellow, recognised for her work building open knowledge platforms that allow citizens to collaborate and improve their cities. She is a former ICFJ Knight Fellow and recipient of the Gene Burd Award for Excellence in Urban Journalism 2025.
Narin Diri (Turkey)
Narin Diri is a journalist at ANKA News Agency, where she covers foreign policy and regional conflicts in the Middle East. She previously worked as the Ankara correspondent for Kurdistan24 TV Channel, which is based in Erbil, and now writes for ANKA Review, an English-language publication for foreign readers focused on Türkiye’s foreign and domestic affairs. Alongside her journalism career, she is pursuing a master’s degree in Middle East Studies at METU, with research on regional politics and society. She follows developments in AI for journalism, digital transformation, and international affairs. Believing in technology’s power to reshape media, she has developed skills in digital content creation and contributes to various digital projects. She is also pursuing an associate degree in computer programming to strengthen her technical background.
Niels Van Nimwegen (Netherlands)
Niels van Nimwegen has spent over a decade in Dutch investigative journalism, currently working on complex investigations at Pointer (KRO-NCRV) covering healthcare fraud, human trafficking, and false sustainability claims. With a background in television and radio broadcasting, data journalism, and digital storytelling, he's now developing a new YouTube format as public media evolves to meet changing audience expectations. An early adopter of emerging technologies, Niels integrates AI tools into his daily practice—from document interrogation using RAG systems to creative coding projects.
Rina Torchinsky (USA)
Rina Torchinsky is a senior data analyst in the audience strategy department at The Washington Post. She is immersed daily in newsroom analytics, both on- and off-platform. Prior to working in news analytics, Rina worked as a journalist, often focused on stories about data and numbers. Rina has written about electric vehicles and tax credits at Forbes, and economics at The Wall Street Journal. She holds a B.A. in Journalism and a B.S. in Information Science from the University of Maryland.
Robyn Wilkinson (Canada)
Robyn Wilkinson is the Managing Editor of Digital Content at Metroland Media in Ontario, Canada, where she has spent 20 years championing local journalism and driving digital transformation. Wilkinson aims to explore practical ways to integrate GenAI into workflows, storytelling, and audience engagement. Her goal is to develop solutions that help newsrooms thrive – ensuring local journalism remains relevant and sustainable in an ever-changing digital landscape.
RUYANGE Jean-Fraterne (Uganda)
RUYANGE Jean-Fraterne is a Congolese journalist, media innovator, and multimedia creative storyteller with a background in Information Technology and International Law. Currently based in Uganda, his work focuses on amplifying the voices of refugees, migrants, ethnic minorities, and marginalised communities across Africa through storytelling, digital media, and advocacy. As the founder and executive director of Streaming Asylum, a refugee-led media platform, RUYANGE Jean-Fraterne develops programmes that combine journalism, education, mental health awareness, and cultural integration. His journalistic interests explore the intersections of displacement, statelessness, climate justice, and power dynamics in international relations—often challenging how global narratives are selectively framed.
Sara Cooper (Germany)
Sara Cooper is the Senior Product Owner at CORRECTIV, a German nonprofit investigative newsroom, with a special focus on reader engagement products. Before joining CORRECTIV, she led the award-winning dialogue project My Country Talks at ZEIT ONLINE, one of Germany’s largest weekly newspapers. She previously worked as a business intelligence analyst at Opinary, a journalism-tech startup. She is originally from Chicago, USA, and moved to Berlin, Germany in 2016 to study a master’s in public policy from the Hertie School of Governance. She is fluent in English, German, and Spanish.
Susie Wu
Susie Wu is a journalist and editor with ten years of experience covering social issues across mainland China and Hong Kong. Currently, she serves as a part-time Senior Special Project Manager at a Chinese-language digital media outlet while also working as a freelance journalist for multiple organisations. Her work is driven by a deep commitment to storytelling and the power of narrative to capture and reflect the world's complexity.
Thomas Gröbner (Germany)
Thomas Gröbner, works at Süddeutsche Zeitung in Munich, Germany. As Managing Editor at the Visual Desk, he specialises in visual storytelling. With a team of designers and developers, he experiments with innovative forms, visualisations, and storytelling techniques. He studied Media and Communication Sciences at the Universities of Passau and Salzburg, completing his journalism training at the Institute for Journalism Training (ifp) in Munich. His reporting spans topics from sports to international affairs.
Vanessa Hann (Switzerland)
Vanessa Hann is a journalist and Junior Product Manager AI at Tamedia in Zürich, Switzerland. With a background in journalism, sociology and a master’s thesis on AI in editorial processes, she bridges practice and technological innovation. At Tamedia’s AI Lab, she explores the use of large language models in newsrooms — ranging from research assistance to headline generation — especially through the Liquid Content project, which rethinks how journalistic formats adapt across platforms. She previously worked at Tages-Anzeiger, SRF and watson, and was named one of Switzerland’s «30 under 30» journalism talents.
Zay Arguelles (Philippines)
Zay Arguelles is a Filipino-British journalist and Supervising Producer at GMA Integrated News’ Digital Strategy and Innovation Lab (DigiLab), where she also serves as innovation lead and climate change communications specialist. She has built her career at the intersection of public interest storytelling, editorial innovation, and strategy development. She oversees and develops digital initiatives, including documentaries, newsletters, podcasts, short-form videos and AI tools. In 2024, she joined the inaugural AI Journalism Lab at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. She is a member of the Reuters Institute’s Oxford Climate Journalism Network (OCJN), and an alumni of WAN-IFRA’s Women in News Leadership Accelerator. Zay earned her Journalism degree from City St. George’s, University of London, and has been with GMA Network Inc. since 2019.
This cohort will spend the next 12 weeks joining live instruction sessions from Jenny Romano, Pedro Henriques, and other guest instructors in learning to build AI-based proofs-of-concept and prototypes.