The Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ) has emerged one of the winners of the 2022 edition of the Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge.

The Google GNI Innovation Challenge empowers news organisations from around the world that pioneer new thinking in online journalism, develop new paths to sustainability and better understand their communities.

FIJ was selected for its proposed News Impact Project (NIP), an initiative that extends the value of news beyond “informing, educating and entertaining”, to “positively impacting the society”. FIJ’s NIP hands the power of reporting to the public, allowing them to leverage communication technology to use the media for social causes.

“Every Innovation Challenge project we support represents the best of the best ideas in advancing digital news media,” Google News Initiative said while announcing the winners on Tuesday.

“Applications undergo a rigorous and competitive assessment process. When a project is selected for funding, a wide group of Google employees and industry experts have agreed on a high potential for meaningful impact and inspiration.”

“This is a great development not just for us, but even more so for the people we serve,” said Damilola Ayeni, Editor of FIJ. “FIJ has always been close to the public, but thanks to this support from the Google News Initiative, we are expanding the open window.”

“The people, whom we serve with our work, can consider this a positive development,” ‘Fisayo Soyombo, FIJ’s Founder/Editor-in-Chief, added. “This support from GNI will deepen our social-justice work and improve our response time to public complaints.”

The organisers said there were 227 recipients of the GNI Innovation Challenges in Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East, Turkey & Africa and North America, representing 47 countries around the regions.

In the Middle East, Turkey & Africa category, four other Nigerian projects joined FIJ on the list of successful applicants. They are: HumAngle, with a web-based and direct-to-mail community for the audience to get unlimited access to conflict, humanitarian and development reports with data inserts, explainers and highly interactive and immersive reports; Dubawa, with an automated radio fact checker application, that listens to radio stations in Nigeria and Ghana, records all audio, converts to text; and The Republic’s ATLAS, which will host relevant news images and editorial images curated from local African photographers and photojournalists for instant download by anyone.

Completing the list, TheCable, where FIJ’s founder worked as the founding Editor, was selected for TheCable Disability Inclusion News App (TheCable DINA). TheCable plans to build Nigeria’s first disability inclusive news application, with the app including assistive technology that makes it the go-to place for persons with visual impairments, auditory challenges, and many others with limb challenges.