By Joy Ude
The StartupSouth Enterprise Development LTD/GTE, on Thursday trained 50 journalists in the South-South region on the need to enhance innovative technology tools for report events and ecosystem in the Niger Delta and beyond.
StartupSouth Enterprise Development LTD/GTE is a Startup ecosystem development and advocacy organisation that inspires founders building high scale ventures in Nigeria with specific focus on the South-South and South-East region.
The Convener of the of the StartupSouth workshop, Uche Aniche, said this during the training of Journalists in Port Harcourt.
He said that the workshop is aimed at training journalists in technology reporting.
Aniche also said that the workshop would enable journalists in the Niger Delta region to understand the terms and tools of innovative technologies to be able to report the upcoming launch of innovative groundbreaking solution built by Xend Finance in October.
Aniche urged journalists to be passionate and intentional in understanding technology innovation, the importance of applying them in their daily activities to promote accountability in the society.
One of the facilitators, Mrs Chioma Ezenwafor,Head of News, Nigeria Info FM Port Harcourt, said that tech reporting had gone beyond and creating Publicity about latest innovation.
Ezenwafor said that tech and innovative reporting entails using modern and innovative technological tools in reporting events and the ecosystem.
Ezenwafor stated the importance of knowing innovative technology terms and using them in reporting or writing articles as journalists.
She said that tech journalism helps to drive innovations, can also drive power, and help journalists to ask right questions when things are going wrong in the technology industries, and hold them accountable.
Ezenwafor urged journalists to understand the tech journalism landscape, the key tech and innovation which she mentioned as Fin tech, Edtech, Agritech, blockchain and Health tech.
She urged journalists to nech down and report on any of these tech keys and also identify the relevant stories in the tech innovation.
Mr Frank Eleanya,Senior Tech Writer, TechCabal, urged journalists to use apps on their smartphones to harness the potentials of tech innovation.
Eleanya also one of the speakers, advised journalists to build strong online presence, personal branding and audience engagement aside storytelling.
He urged journalists to use data to create compelling narratives in storytelling, and also study the history of tech before reporting tech innovations.
Similarly, Mr Keni Akintoye, Founder of iBrandTV, urged journalists to identify tech tools that can make them stand out as experts.
Akintoye urged journalists to understand data analysis and use them in their daily work to produce quality reports.