Students Create a New Intelligent Mobile Search Tool
Columbia, Mo. (April 27, 2017) — A team of sophomores in journalism and computer science took the grand prize in the 10th annual Reynolds Journalism Institute Student Competition with Informator, an intelligent mobile search tool that finds hidden relationships between key words and phrases.
Informator helps journalists overcome the problem of too many news organizations taking the same approach on the same small set of stories. For example, by tracking concepts highly correlated in their database with the word “transgender,” the team quickly uncovered an underreported story about transgender diabetes patients and problems they have with health care services, particularly in rural areas. They also surfaced a report that many European countries require transgender residents to be sterilized when they attempt to change their name or gender on a driver’s license.
Three other finalist teams took part in this year’s RJI Student Competition, which focused on mobile applications of artificial intelligence to address journalistic problems and opportunities. [More]
Updated: October 20, 2020