(CSF urges journalists to participate in IJFP 09)

The Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF), a joint initiative of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Ministry of Finance has encouraged journalists throughout the country to participate in the process for the selection of journalists for Innovation Journalism Fellowship Program at Stanford University, California.

CSF has been able to facilitate and send six Pakistani journalists to the United States for the fellowship program initiated in Pakistan in 2007 and is the first of its kind to be introduced, a press release said here Friday.

Applicants who are entrepreneurial, curious, active and interested in expanding their knowledge and like taking part in community-building can apply for screening by CSF and fellow journalists for final selection to the program.

The fellowship program is five to six months long and comprises Stanford Innovation Lectures Series, Presentations and Q&As with players, Innovation Beat Newsroom. Working with host newsrooms i.e. spending 4 to 5 months inside a leading US newsroom, making public innovation policy, attending a workshop on the role of media in society and being a contributor to the 6th Conference on Innovation Journalism which is scheduled to be held at Stanford from May 20 to 22nd, 2009.

The keynote speakers at the conference would be Vint Cerf, Vice President & Chief Internet Evangelist, Google, and Zafar Siddiqui, Founder and Chairman, CNBC Pakistan, CNBC Arabiya and CNBC Africa.

Mr. Siddiqui was also one of the keynote speakers at the last conference as well. Each of the Innovation Journalism Fellows 2009 would present a session at the conference. After completing the program, the fellows would receive a Stanford Certificate and an alumni program supports the established networks after the duration of their fellowship ends.

CSF and Stanford also have formally created the working mechanism for CSFs support of Pakistani participation in the program, including provisions for a project coordinator to be employed on-site by Stanford to assist the Pakistani journalists with logistics and liaison with their host editors and publications.

Since last year, CSF has put forward fellows for the program from Aaj TV, Business Recorder, Dawn, News One, The News and CNBC Pakistan.

The Innovation Journalism Program at Stanford is the worlds first InJo program and was founded by the Stanford centre for Innovation and Learning and VINNOVA, the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems.

The Program at Stanford hosts the Conference on Innovation Journalism which has run yearly since 2004. Each year, innovation initiatives around the world nominate candidates to the InJo Fellowships and Pakistan is one of them.

The Stanford program would assist in bridging technology and business reporting in Pakistan and bridging the gap between Pakistani reporting and reporting in the US and other countries.

CSF has been established to reposition Pakistans economy on a more global footing. The Fund is based on international best practices and has been tailored to the current Pakistani economic environment.

It supports Pakistans goal of a more competitive economy by providing input into policy decisions, working to improve regulatory and administrative frameworks and enhancing public-private partnerships within the country.

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