Elizabeth R Media Fund: Seeking Applications for Commonwealth Digital Challenge

Deadline: 3 November 2017

Elizabeth R Media Fund is seeking applications for its “Commonwealth Digital Challenge” with an aim to provide young and aspiring media managers from the Commonwealth with the skills and tools necessary to help their organisations face the digital challenges in their countries.

The event will also act as a spur to the competitors to discuss the needs of a free and competitive media across the Commonwealth.

The overall winner will be invited to spend a week’s intensive study of UK media organisations in London, with all expenses paid, during the week of the Commonwealth Summit in London in April, 2018.

Eligibility Criteria

• Applicants must be citizens of a Commonwealth member country, excluding the UK.
• The competition is open to journalists and media managers working for a media organisation in the public or private sectors.
• Entrants must be journalists or media managers, aged between 28 and 35, on April 1st, 2018.
• The competition organisers may request documentation to verify an entrant’s age and employment status.

How to Apply

• Entrants will be asked to submit a 400-word statement, in English, outlining a particular challenge posed to their organisation, or media sector, in their country together with a potential business case for how it could be addressed.
• Twenty applicants will be invited to take three online modules in digital skills and newsroom management from the Thomson Foundation’s online Journalism Now programme.
• The most successful of the 20, in the opinion of the judges, will be invited to spend a week’s intensive study of UK media organisations in London, during Commonwealth Week 2018, followed by online mentoring by Thomson Foundation consultants for 12 months.
• The winner will lead a virtual conference of the top 20 applicants and UK media mentors focusing on how the media can react to the challenges thrown up by the topic of Commonwealth Week.
• Applicants must submit their initial entry by midnight GMT on Friday, November 3rd, 2017. Shortlisted applicants must be able to take the online modules between November 15th, 2017 and January 31st, 2018.
• Applications must be submitted via given website.

Eligible Country: Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, The Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados,  Belize, Botswana, Brunei Darussalam, Cameroon, Canada, Cyprus, Dominica, Fij, Ghana, Grenada, Guyana, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives,Malta, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, New Zealand,Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Sri Lanka, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and The Grenadines, Swaziland, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania, Vanuatu, Zambia

For more information, please visit Commonwealth Digital Challenge.