The David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute at Columbia Journalism School and the School of Engineering at Stanford are delighted to announce its 2021-2022 Magic Grant program. Applications are due May 1, 2021! To provide more information about our grants and the application process, the Brown Institute is hosting multiple information sessions. At Columbia, virtual
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The Brown Institute Announces its 2021-2022 Magic Grant Competition!
The David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute at Columbia Journalism School and the School of Engineering at Stanford are delighted to announce its 2021-2022 Magic Grant program. Applications are due May 1, 2021! Each year, the Brown Institute awards close to $1M in grants and fellowships to foster new tools and modes of expression, and
Magic Grant ‘Documenting COVID-19’ Receives 2020 Free Speech & Open Government Award from The First Amendment Coalition
The Brown Institute is pleased to announce Magic Grant project ‘Documenting COVID-19‘ is the 2020 recipient of The First Amendment Coalition’s Free Speech & Open Government award. The project includes a team of journalists, data scientists, and a designer and has worked tirelessly to shed light on how state and local governments have responded to the
Highlights from Changing Course
Over the past 3 months, the Brown Institute hosted three lectures challenging us to think about data and computation in new ways. Each talk was by researchers outside of journalism, and there were terrific lessons from their approaches to data and computation for journalists interested in these areas. Below are recordings of the lectures by
The Brown Institute, Lenfest Local Lab and Philadelphia Inquirer are partnering to build content audit tools
Our collaborative project won the Google GNI Innovation Challenge, securing $300,000 to build and test machine learning-based tools that help newsrooms analyze equity and representation in their work at scale. Editor’s note: This post was co-written and edited by Michael Krisch, Deputy Director of the Brown Institute; Sarah Schmalbach, Product Director of the Lenfest Local
‘Sylvia’ Premiering at IDFA DocLab
Have you ever known an aging robot? Meet Sylvia, the first aging virtual influencer. Premiering on November 20, 2020 at the International Documentary FilmFestival Amsterdam (IDFA), attendee’s can look back on Sylvia’s life, and witness its end. Virtual Influencers are computer-generated characters that exist on social media and appear as real humans. These characters are complex
‘Changing Course’: Lectures on Data Representations and Equitable Approaches to Computing
Each year, the Brown Institute sponsors talks that explore the intersection between media and technology. This year we have three virtual presentations lined up, each challenging us to think about data and computation in new ways. Johanna Drucker starts the series by looking at alternatives to representing time — looking beyond graphic standards such as
Magic Grant projects ‘Public Analysis of TV News’ and ‘Sports Illustrated’ featured on Bloomberg QuickTake
On October 21, 2020, Ashlee Vance, Senior Writer at Bloomberg Businessweek interviewed Stanford Professor Kayvon Fatahalian and highlighted advancements in artificial intelligence through Magic Grant projects Public Analysis of TV News and Sports Illustrated. In the piece, Vance and Fatahalian highlight the tremendous opportunities that AI has provided for media makers. Both also offer thoughtfulness
Institute Director Agrawala talks Deep Fakes with the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI
To spot a deep fake, researchers looked for inconsistencies between “visemes,” or mouth formations, and “phonemes,” the phonetic sounds. Using AI to Detect Seemingly Perfect Deep-Fake Videos was published on the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Blog on 10/13/2020, which featured Brown Institute Director Maneesh Agrawala. In the article, Agrawala spoke to the struggles