For over a decade now, digital transformation has been among the buzz words in Tanzania. As time goes on, the term is becoming more popular to entrepreneurs, government officials, politicians and tech enthusiasts. 

However, what I have learnt is that despite being a buzzword, what exactly it means and how it is implemented differs from one business to another. For some, like a community radio station I visited in Morogoro in April 2024, digital transformation is about social media presence but the truth is that it means more than that. 

The knowledge gap on digital transformation is one of the factors leaving other businesses behind. But what is digital transformation in a real sense? 

In simple terms, digital transformation is about using digital technologies to improve business processes, culture and customer experience. The use of digital technologies should be across all business units including human resources management and not one core department or unit alone. It is a vital initiative in boosting business growth as it helps the organisation to respond to ever changing business and market needs. 

Accessible to everyone

The ongoing innovation in digital technologies is making digital tools and services more accessible to all types of businesses big and small. This has leveled the playing field, allowing smaller businesses to compete more effectively with larger corporations.

There are several benefits of digital transformation for businesses but I will dive into some of them as they might influence other entrepreneurs to embark and implement it. 

Firstly, Digital transformation is key in improving operational efficiency. The ongoing innovation has brought thousands of digital tools such as collaborative tools and automation which are very helpful in improving business efficiency. 

Unlike the past where some businesses were forced to deliver services during the day time or hire many staff, digital technologies such as Artificial Intelligence enables automation of many activities from the media where I’m involved in to factories. 

Automation technologies can streamline processes, reduce errors, and free up employees to focus on more strategic tasks. According to the Digital Progress and Trends Report  2023 published by the World Bank, companies that have invested in and deployed AI have experienced higher growth in product innovation, labor force, sales, profits, net operating efficiency, and market valuations.

Secondly, businesses should embrace digital transformation because it improves customer experience. Digital technologies have enabled businesses to gather valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences. Unlike offline business engagement which mostly depends on paperwork or no data collection at all for small businesses, entrepreneurs who apply digital technologies in their offerings have access to real time and accurate data about their customers. 

Data analytics for informed decision-making

By analyzing data collected through online interactions, companies can tailor their products and services to meet the specific needs of their target audience. This personalized approach fosters stronger customer relationships and drives loyalty.  Effective use of data helps businesses in making decisions in improving the quality and quantity of their offerings. 

For example, it is easy through data analytics to know which product is most loved by your customers, how much you have earned, and  how much you have spent to run your business in real time if everything is running through a digital system. 

In our efforts of helping individuals and organisations in using data to run business, at Nukta Africa we have discovered that there are many medium and small businesses rich in data but cannot use them to make decisions including finding the best ways to improve customer experience. 

The application of artificial intelligence and machine learning has transformed big time how we offer services to our clients. This has largely improved customer experience. Chatbots nowadays handle routine customer inquiries, while automated systems can optimize inventory management and supply chain logistics. Some of these technologies do not require your business to have billions of money to deploy them. 

For instance, some small businesses are using WhatsApp Business or integrated bots to allow their customers place orders or respond to customer inquiries when they are not in the office. This reduces unnecessary delays in responding to customer needs and it increases customer satisfaction. Any business that leverages these technologies at any scale has an opportunity to grow fast and beat competitors. 

Nukta Africa has been training and advising media executives and other business officials on how they can use data in decision making. Our approach has been on highlighting techniques to get insights from data and how to connect with events in the market. This helps trainees to build contexts to their data. 

New opportunities, more growth

Beside improving customer experience, digital transformation opens up new opportunities for businesses to expand their reach and enter new markets. In a digital world, as I always say there is no small person or small business. Digital innovations like e-commerce have empowered companies to sell their products and services to customers beyond their local and national borders. especially nowadays when internet users are increasing year-on-year.

In Tanzania, for instance, internet users grew by 21 times within 10 years from 1.93 million subscribers in 2014 to 39.3 million subscribers by June 2024, according to Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA). 

The increase in internet users and penetration has also raised the number of smartphone users who are highly likely to use or buy products and services online. This is evident from data from the communication regulator and telecoms.

Vodacom Tanzania alone, according to its Annual Integrated Report for the year ending March 2024, added a record-breaking 1.3 million smartphones into the market this year but still nearly half or 49% of its customers are still not using smartphones, highlighting the scale of the growth opportunities. This is an opportunity for businesses to adopt digital technologies to maximise their market.

We have seen small businesses operating in remote areas which have undergone digital distribution selling more products to cities like Dar es Salaam after promoting their businesses online. Social media and content marketing are highly used now to build brand awareness and engage with potential customers. Improvement in internet services across the country has improved accessibility of content and services by improving speed. 

Despite the benefits, digital transformation in any organization is highly likely to face challenges such as high costs, low customer adoption rate, cybercrimes and resistance to change among staff and other important stakeholders. 

To solve some of these challenges,  it is important to note that digital transformation should be driven by the organisation itself. The organisation team should be the one identifying the needs for transformation or at least be ready to accept the change. 

The company should have a very clear plan and strategy to implement digital transformation. The team should assess the needs, map stakeholders, determine project costs, benefits and risks. This will empower them to find best ways to raise funds to develop needed systems or buy digital tools, hire new staff or train the team and clients to prepare for the new changes and mechanisms to track performance. 

Build a strong digital culture, minimize risks

The good thing with inward digital transformation is that every member in the team is very passionate about the changes and eager to innovate to improve the business. This automatically creates a competitive and inclusive culture. 

Borrowing what the Vodacom Tanzania PLC CEO, Philip Besiimire said during our panel discussion on the “Evolution of the Tanzanian Information Environment” at the US-Tanzania Tech Challenge event recently in Dar es Salaam, digital technology is an opportunity to equalize  societies across the world. According to him, digital technology gives you the same level of access as other people in the developed world. 

Philip’s assertion is true for business as well. Any business regardless of the size and the sector, has an equal chance to grow and survive in the market if it embraces digital transformation in scales according to resources and creates strong mechanisms to minimise risks. 

My advice for anyone embarking on digital transformation is that the efforts in adopting digital technologies should also consider ways to fight cyber crimes and build responsive systems to prevent any technical hitches including data losses to ensure smooth operations of the business. There should be a very robust training program for the team to understand the processes and desired goals. 

Nuzulack Dausen is the CEO of Nukta Africa, a digital media and technology company specialised in research of emerging journalism and communication practices, media training and production of digital and data-driven content. He is a senior journalist specialising in covering business, economics, technology and data. These are his own views and may not necessarily reflect Nukta Habari position.

Even those higher learning institutions which are offering most needed skills in the market such as Digital Journalism and Data Journalism, are doing so at higher prices which most of us cannot afford due to economic hardships. Based on my experience it is hard to find these kinds of institutions in Tanzania.

The best option for someone to sharpen his or her skills has been in-house training or what other colleagues in the learning industry call On-the-job training (OJT).

The ever changing digital technologies have eased how we access new journalism or communication skills through digital platforms. If there is no institution in Tanzania providing skills which are highly demanded in the market, now it is easy to access somewhere in the world where they teach through online platforms. However, this is likely to be a favorable route for colleagues who are fluent in English, the language mostly used in online learning platforms.

Skills gaps among journalists and editors affects everyone

There are few e-learning platforms offering technical skills in the local language, especially Swahili. The absence of learning content in Swahili on emerging journalism and mass communication skills, creates knowledge gaps between journalists or communication practitioners who were lucky to learn English well and those who were not. This is a sad truth.

The knowledge gap between journalists and editors in Tanzania does not only affect themselves as individuals but the whole nation. This is because most Tanzanians access news from news outlets which depend on these journalists to collect news, edit and disseminate to the audience. For example, data published by Afrobarometer on media and access to information in 2021 shows more than two-thirds or 72% of Tanzanians access news on radio every day or a few times a week.

This means that if journalists don’t have fact-checking skills it will be easy to spread misinformation to the public through news, a situation which is more harmful to the society than one would imagine.

As for many issues related to our education in Tanzania, many have been pointing fingers on the knowledge gaps in the media industry to our education system. While it is true, this should not be a hiding place. Let all of us face the truth.

We need to solve this skills crisis together and support everyone in the media and communication industry to ensure they are knowledgeable to empower our nation, Tanzania. These learning interventions are needed more today than any period before for many reasons including media viability.

Partnership will solve skills crisis in Tanzania

I know there are many stakeholders investing in this but we can do better and at high speed to achieve the maximum as we have been doing at Nukta Africa, a Tanzanian digital media company specializing in media research, media training and production of digital and data-driven content and tools.

For five years I and my team at Nukta Africa in partnership with our partners Internews, Tanzania Media Foundation (TMF), UNESCO, Media Council of Tanzania, Hivos, Code for Africa and others have been investing heavily in studying new needed skills, prepare customized lessons and impart the skills to journalists and editors from different media outlets in the country.

Our learning interventions have involved master classes, boot camps and mentorship programs in Data Journalism, Multimedia storytelling, Fact-checking, Social Media management, Narrative storytelling and Renewable energy reporting.

To complement our existing efforts, this February we will start testing our first e-learning platform that is dedicated to emerging journalism and communication skills. The e-learning platform, which we have called Kozica, is meant to provide data and digital storytelling skills in Swahili and on-demand.

Introducing Kozica to solve skill gaps in the media

In this new e-learning platform developed with financial support from UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC), we will start offering Multimedia storytelling, Data journalism, and Fact-checking courses in Swahili for free.

While we expect in the future to charge a relatively small amount of fee in some of the premium courses, for now Kozica will be accessed free and all video tutorials will be delivered in our national language which is estimated to be spoken by more than 150 million people. Other learning materials will be delivered in both English and Swahili as we move on.

Kozica will provide a platform to trainers who want to share their skills with others either for free or for a certain amount of training fee. We believe there are media and communication trainers outside there who have serious dedication and passion for improving skills to young men and women in Tanzania. We welcome them to register here so that we can continue improving lives through digital and data-driven tools and content.

Our main aim is to make Kozica, one among the best learning centers in the world offering customized emerging communication and journalism skills. We believe if media staff are equipped with requisite digital and data skills they will be able to create plans and strategies which will support their media organisations to remain sustainable while creating impactful news to our society.

Nuzulack Dausen is a CEO of Nukta Africa, a Tanzanian digital media company specializing in media research, media training and production of digital and data-driven content and tools. He is an experienced international journalist, media trainer and researcher.

However, this quiet environment changes when the bottom right side of their computer screens reads 01:00 pm. This time, here they call it the “happy hour”. While no drinks or food is served for free like a party, the feeling at the Nukta Lab, the first private media lab in Tanzania, matches the real happy hour.

“I always wish time runs fast to reach this hour and when it gets there I wish time stops, to me this is a platinum moment,” says Omar Suleiman Mwiru, a 28 year-old Multimedia Producer at Nukta Africa.

Nukta Africa is a Tanzanian digital media startup specialises in applied research of emerging journalism techniques, media training and production of digital and data-driven content and tools.

“This is a precious time in a hard time, during this moment is when you get to know if your colleagues are fine or stressed,” he said while smiling.

Most members in this lab, situated along Mwananyamala Road in the commercial capital, Dar es Salaam are data analysts, IT specialists and content creators. They spend more time in the field and the lab when creating their content.

Loud laughs, happy interactions and good music breaks all the silence that clouds the Nukta lab five hours before the lunch break.

What is happening at Happy hour here is not by default. Among the important values and lessons from the lab is to focus on work, collaborate and make sure you deliver highly innovative content that improves lives. It is rare to find someone idle playing video games in the middle of working time but only to spare colleagues from the creative section sometimes.

By the way, where do you get such idle time while your business partners are under deadlines to deliver their projects and the audience is not served with quality news?

Daniel Samson, who has been a Digital Editor at Nukta Africa for three years, said with the nature of his job he cannot mess up, taking a lunch break on time to breathe in and refresh his mind to increase productivity.

“Having to write my own stories and edit the other colleagues’ stories is not a joke. I don’t really have time to chit chat, I normally just focus so as to finish my work on time,” Samson, an award-winning data and education journalist, said.

“The lunch break is the only time I get to breathe in and out well (relax) from all the work I have, call my family and socialize with my colleagues,” he added.

There is no single person from the Nukta Africa team or other lab members who is loathed with this hour. On the moody days, hard days and happy days the lunch break hour seems to have it all sorted out.

“I thank the person that started this practice since it is really helpful and gives me a chance to gather the energy I need to finish my work,” says Essau N’gumbi one of Nukta Africa’s Multimedia journalists.

One hour lunch break might seem like a waste of time to other people but to this team, it is a reward that fixes everything. This is one of the things that contributes to the best work published and produced by the Nukta Africa team.

What type of happy hour do you have at your work? Share with us via @NuktaAfrica.

Despite its importance especially in sharing news, it poses serious quality challenges on what is supposed to go to the public due to limited gatekeeping. Who decides which information is right for the public? What kind of mechanism is applied by digital media outlets to provide content that is credible and just?

As we evaluate the press freedom journey around the world after celebrating the World Press Freedom Day on 3rd May 2021, we need to think about gatekeeping in the digital era where news spreads too fast with less or no editing at all.

Sometimes the information published by online media cannot independently be confirmed, resulting in confusion to the audience. Bad enough some of the mainstream media with serious gatekeeping policies fall under the same trap.

To help these ever increasing digital media or online news outlets, it is important to help them and insist on gatekeeping to avoid misinformation.

Since we saw this crisis coming a few years ago, at Nukta Habari (www.nukta.co.tz), a digital media on a daily basis, we developed a clear editorial policy that guides our journalists, editors, commentators and advertisers on how we handle our content and ads online.

Among the rules is speed to break news should not compromise accuracy and no story should be published on our news site without the second eye to gauge the standards even if it is written by experienced journalists. Never.

Though this might not be the case among many online news outlets in Tanzania, we see this gatekeeping practice help us provide accurate and credible content. It really adds trust with our audience.

To achieve this, we use the following techniques that can be applied by other emerging online media outlets:-

Use of credible sources

As this year’s World Press Freedom Day theme suggests “Information as a Public Good”. Online media have the role to produce content that comes from credible and reliable sources.

The public needs reliable and credible sources where they can go for news, thus why Nukta Habari is investing heavily on ensuring our stories are true and relevant to our audience. We want our stories to have a great impact on our audiences. Our editorial policy at Nukta Africa has detailed all these so that we don’t go outside our boundaries.

We always go further from press releases and conferences. We call experts and consult research and data on the issue to give more perspectives to the story. We do not depend on political speech alone.

These efforts have prompted us to push harder to ensure we fight misinformation in our country by fact checking fake claims and publishing the truth when we notice any misinformation trending online.

Professionalism and ethical conduct

This comes down to the public’s appetite for credibility. The audience needs to know what they are reading, watching or listening online is truthful.

The role of a journalist is to serve the public and maintain ethical conduct. To achieve this you need serious gatekeeping which is still significant even in the era of emerging digital media.

At Nukta Habari, accuracy, fair and balanced facts are our values to ensure what we feed our audience content that contributes to public good and just society.

Rescue you from restrictive laws

In a world where governments introces restrictive laws to the media when they fill it, it is important for digital news outlets to improve gatekeeping. Failure to adhere to gatekeeping by having good editors and fact checkers, you will find yourself in trouble with the local laws.

In Tanzania, for example, we have the Information Service Act of 2016, Cyber Crime Act of 2015, Electronic and Postal Communication Act of 2010 and its amendments and Statistics Act of 2015 which regulate the conduct of media practises in the country including digital media. These laws and their regulations are tough on digital media when they are not followed properly.

Despite the fact that these laws affect media freedom and we are still pushing for changes in some sections, we are required to abide by these laws to avoid any legal consequences.

Apart from practicing this inside, we are training upcoming journalists in colleges and universities on the importance of being professional, innovative and acting in accordance with laws. We remind this even to our colleagues who are currently practicing journalism.

Maximise the potential of analytical news and data journalism

The dynamics of gatekeeping in traditional media are quite well covered and understood but for some online news outlets this is a bit challenging. Online media have sometimes been referred to as “copy pasting” media because of little analysis or none at all in the content.

In the digital era, everyone is a journalist, can write anything and share with people. Emerging digital media needs new technologies and skills including analytical and data journalism in order to survive.

At Nukta Habari, analytical and data journalism is our priority because we believe that is the only way to produce content that is well fact checked with public interest that can be distributed through multimedia storytelling.

The need for gatekeeping in today’s media environment is needed more than ever, as there is a need to provide ethical news, which has been fact checked thoroughly by online journalists.

Professional journalists need to assert control over news production and protect themselves from misinformation and give the audience what they deserve rather than posting unverified stuff from online.

Written by Daniel Samson an Online Content Editor at Nukta Africa in charge of managing Nukta Habari content. He has won several journalism awards including Best Data Journalist of the year in Tanzania in 2019 by National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Dar es Salaam. For years in Tanzania journalists, journalism students and digital media entrepreneurs have been struggling to get a well-equipped space where they would go to learn emerging digital and data storytelling skills or use them while working on their journalism projects.

This is contrary to their colleagues in the non-media industry who have a couple of innovation hubs to use in the commercial capital, Dar es Salaam and some cities and towns including Arusha and Moshi.

To solve the problem, Nukta Africa, a Tanzanian digital media and technology company, is set to launch the first private-owned media lab to help journalists both upcoming and practising build their data and multimedia storytelling skills and produce their projects comfortably.

Nukta Africa, which specialises in training and development of digital and data-driven news stories and tools, through the media lab among other things will offer training to groups and individuals on data journalism, fact-checking, narrative storytelling and multimedia storytelling. The company also owns a Swahili data-driven news site called Nukta Habari (www.nukta.co.tz).

The courses are meant to empower journalists and communicators to maximise the potential of data and digital media especially this time when the media industry is passing under constant digital transformation.

Nukta Africa’s Chief of Training and Business Development, Daniel Mwingira says the lab is able to provide up to 15 trainees 9 out of them with computers with internet access for practical training sessions with additional five facilitators. The equipment, according to him, is meant to help journalists who do not have laptops or personal computers at their home to acquire digital skills.

“We have all the resources one needs to learn. From a quiet environment, powerful computers, smart television and other supportive appliances for anyone who will have access to it. The lab is also located somewhere easily reachable from Makumbuso, even the City Centre and all corners of Dar es Salaam,” says Mwingira.

To help other media stakeholders who provide media training and other non-journalism training that needs equipment, have an opportunity to rent the space at a very affordable rate in a bid to build a skilled workforce in Tanzania.

“The lab can be accessed through stairs and a 24/7 elevator service which is also friendly to anyone, even colleagues with physical challenges,” says Mwingira who adds that all health guidelines such as the provision of sanitisers, social distance and wearing masks are highly considered at the lab.

The lab will not only be used for training but also give room for any individual who desires to learn more about journalism and seeks a supportive place to accomplish that goal. The individuals who are dubbed media lab members will subscribe to membership as a way of ensuring commitment and support for space sustainability.

Why a lab for the media?

Nukta Africa’s Chief Finance & Administration Officer Maphosa Banduka says the media industry needs to be a source of actionable information that would contribute to change and development of the country and that is why Nukta Lab is introduced to equip journalists with the skills that are hard to get in the industry.

“We wish to see journalists publishing and broadcasting news and information that leaves a positive impact while solving various challenges in our society using reliable statistics,” Banduka said.

“For the use of this lab, I urge journalists, students pursuing journalism and mass communications and all communication personnel and stakeholders to see it as a career-changing centre to sharpen and update their skills,” she said.

The media lab is a realisation of Nukta Africa’s five-year plan and generous support from partner organizations including Internews Tanzania which has supported some of the potential training equipment.

For more information about the lab, reach the management via email info@nukta.co.tz or dial +255 677 088 088. You can also reach out via social media on Facebook, Twitter na LinkedIn @Nukta Africa and @nuktaafrica on Instagram.

Looking back for the past two years it was still a nightmare whether Nukta Habari could have existed and survive in the media industry as it is today. It was an idea that mainly came up with the aim of changing the media industry through effective use of digital tools and data in telling stories that impact people’s lives.

Today Nukta Habari, which covers technology, education, business, tourism and data content, has emerged as one of the trusted and innovative analytical Swahili news portal in Tanzania.

For them, online analysed data stories with human face will help readers make decisions by using facts and experts advice featured in stories.

Despite its newness, Nukta has managed to increase its audience by 1,300% or by 14 times in a year despite covering what is perceived to be hard news for the youth.

Unlike the past where blogs and other news portals in Tanzania were criticised for copy pasting content from newspapers, Nukta has changed the narrative where at least newspapers are now copying our analysis and visuals for publication.

Nukta is also a learning platform for the team to develop their skills and deliver what is suitable for the targeted audience. New storytelling skills and open source tools are tested here before trainers go out to train other journalists. The platform is used to find customised solutions for local online news platforms especially on content development.

Such transformative objectives are what encourages the editorial team to keep pushing for production of creative content everyday for free everyday.

“Nukta is a perfect learning platform. It has helped me alot in acquiring media skills and has contributed to my career growth,” Daniel Samson, Online Content Editor of Nukta Habari said.

To ensure the future generation acquire best digital and data journalism skills, graduates have been given opportunities to learn and showcase their talents.

As young journalists who are contributing to the platform, also they are happy too on how they learn and given the ground to experiment new storytelling techniques and show their journalism skills while working at Nukta.

“As a content writer from Nukta Habari, what excites me every morning is the way I brainstorm new ideas to write what brings impact to the readers that I write for. Nukta gives me a huge platform to show my ability,” Rodgers George, a digital journalist at Nukta Habari said.

George has been keen on experimenting new styles of storytelling by using explainer videos.

Though it has just two years in the market, Nukta journey has never been easy. The platform still builds its audience to ensure that the analytical news it publishes reaches many people like other online news portals which publish sports or gossip.

Sources and readers are happy that now there is a serious online news portal which services the youth while maintaining high standards of journalism.

“Their style is different and new. But they need more marketing and probably creativity for Nukta to be well known out there,” Kennedy Mmari the Founder and visionary leader of a communication agency, Serengeti Bytes said.

Most sources say Nukta Habari has helped them spread their views as well as boosting their businesses like Fatuma Mbaga.

Fatuma, an entrepreneur, said a story published by the platform brought impact to her business and she was not expecting Nukta would have that influence.

She said the story was detailed and well balanced and no one has ever reported about her agribusiness initiative before.

“The questions I was asked are unique compared to those i have been asked about before.

“I can tell the creativity of Nukta from the stories reported about my business, I still encourage the team to market themselves by the perfect stories they publish,” Fatuma said.

The editorial team at Nukta Habari are looking for more techniques and tools to produce high quality news that will help the portal increase its audience as well as revenues.

“As a content editor and journalist at Nukta, I’m planning to use my skills and experience of using digital tools for storytelling. This will help us meet the audience’s desire,” Samson said promising more quality content in future.

To achieve quality content production, Samson said he is determined to ensure the editorial team is adhering to the journalistic standards while writing and disseminating news that help improve people’s lives.

“My plans are to learn more digital tools that will help me make unique content. I nee d to write to the extent that someone doesn’t need to see a logo or any identification to know he/she is reading Nukta by the sense of uniqueness in the content,” George said.

To ensure they attract more audience and offer impactful content, Nukta Africa, which owns Nukta Habari, is planning to launch a new website soon that will be more interactive, up to date and reach in content.

Nuzulack Dausen the CEO and Executive Editor of Nukta Africa, said the new website has been improved both technologically and content wise.

From the content side, he said they will cover more special reports or in-depth news and updated weather forecasts and market data that answer the “So What” question to the readers.

The stories, according to him, will exhaust data to help readers understand issues in a bigger picture.

“We will have more updated weather and market data in a special page in Swahili to build a data-driven nation. Individuals such as farmers and companies will be having opportunities to get these data for decision making,” said Dausen, who is an award-winning data journalist.

From the technological point of view Dausen said the new website has been built to cater the needs of the mobile first generation.

“We want our audience to enjoy quality content in a mobile friendly platform. Our apps will later be available in Android, and iOS,” Dausen said without giving details on when the apps will be rolled out.

The new website will be launched in April 2020 where agriculture will be among the top topics to be covered.

The team believes the improved website in technology and content will enable Nukta increase its audience share while producing quality data-driven content.

The ever changing technology which is famously known as digital disruption has brought a knowledge gap among the journalists and communication professionals in the world including Tanzania in terms of skills that can fit in with the current market needs. 

Currently, it is very rare to find a journalist or communication professional who possesses multiple skills such as data storytelling techniques, fact checking and multimedia storytelling  in print,  electronic and digital only media.

Such skills gaps led Nukta Africa Lab to develop training programs to meet the current market needs for journalists, media organisations and civil society organisations (CSOs) in Tanzania. 

Nukta Africa is deeply committed to ensuring Tanzanian journalists and media institutions compete in the global market by training  and mentoring them through up-to-date designed programs on narrative and impactful storytelling, fact checking, data journalism, data visualisation and advocacy storytelling for. Most of these courses are not readily available in the local colleges and universities in Tanzania. 

The programs, which have been  designed by Nukta Africa Lab in collaboration with other media development partners, are meant to equip journalists and communication professionals with recent digital and data skills that can help them and their organisations survive under this challenging time. 

For journalists, media institutions and communication professionals who  want to be ahead of others in the market, it is time to contact us for training and consultancy services on these unique emerging storytelling skills. Learning has never stopped in this digital world. Let’s grow together.

The drive behind starting the site and our company Nukta Africa, was to influence maximum use of data in decision making among the youth and businesses in Tanzania through data-driven news stories.

We want to push transparency and accountability to everyone through data.

For long, data produced by the government, NGO’s, UN agencies, research tanks and companies have not been well exploited by the media and the public in general.

Few people understands that data can show them unexploited business opportunities or help them manage well their daily expenses. Even those who knows the true value of data could not get enough data-driven news stories that would help them make rational decisions or understand broadly prevailing phenomena.

By then and until now, most of blogs and news apps in Tanzania are publishing stories about personalities rather than issues in politics, entertainment, fashion and sports. Undoubtedly, the stories are easy to produce and are in high demand among consumers especially the youth that’s why are highly preferred by publishers.

A risky route

Internally, we decided to take an opposite direction by adding value to the news: more data and contexts which should answer the “so what” or “why should we care” questions and provide digital and data literacy to our fellow journalists.

We decided to pick fewer topics which are less covered in Tanzania mainly in business, energy, technology, safari, education and data.

We knew the potential risks for opting on the topics including slow growth of audience.

However, everyone in the team was happy to pursue the challenging route with the belief that most Tanzanians will understand its value in future. This doesn’t mean we won’t cover sports, lifestyle, entertainment and their cousins, no. We will cover them but very differently.

Another force behind starting Nukta Africa was the absence of original reporting among Tanzanian online news sites. Our short study that reviewed 100 active blogs in the East African nation, discovered that nearly 80 percent of stories were copied from each other.

The same pictures and articles would appear in most of these news sites. Other articles were copied from newspapers as they are but with bloggers bylines. No value addition. Bloggers would copy and paste press releases as they are burying interesting stories on it.

The writing and editing was below standards and of course no adherence to media ethics. We wanted to change this by restoring digital media integrity to the audience. We wanted to change the negative perception about copy pasting behaviour in online media in Tanzania.

Nearly a year and half since we started publishing news and offering digital and data journalism trainings, Nukta Africa has grown massively not in monetary terms but content wise.

We have managed to achieve some of our dreams even under tough circumstances thanks to our readers, sources, columnists, volunteers and partners such as Code for Africa, Hivos East Africa and Internews.

Reversing the norm

Within a year we have managed to publish nearly 1,000 articles of which more than three-quarters are data-driven. We have developed all these stories under very tough statistics law without breaching it. We might have done mistakes in writings but, as we all know, we are human beings.

Some of our news stories have been republished or developed by the mainstream media, a situation which was hard to achieve before. Initially, blogs were seen as copiers of newspapers.

We have covered the technology ecosystem in Tanzania and introduced many young entrepreneurs to the mainstream media and the public in general. We are happy that their brands growing.

Supporting the innovation ecosystem growth

Apart from publishing news, we have hosted dozen of data and technology events including the recent one held this March during the Innovation Week 2019 in Dar es Salaam dubbed “Media for Innovation Growth.”

The idea behind investing heavily on covering the innovation ecosystem is to spur more innovative ideas among Tanzanians and exploit ongoing technologies in all sort of life. We will do more of this in future.

As we grow we don’t want to lock our skills to ourselves. On September last year we started to offer Data Journalism and Fact Checking training services to journalists, public relations professionals and other media houses.

So far we have trained nearly 200 journalism students and practicing journalists in collaboration with our partners including Code for Africa, Internews and Hivos East Africa. Of the trained practicing journalists, five won awards on Excellence in Journalism Awards 2018 by Media Council of Tanzania(MCT) including two on Data Journalism. We are happy to see winners of prestigious Data Journalism categories in the awards, Joyce Shebe (TV) and Yohani Gwangway (Radio) have been trained and mentored by our team.

In a typical capitalist world, it is not a norm to train your competitor to exploit your competitive advantage but we decided to do that to build an ecosystem of well-trained digital and data journalists. In fact, Nukta Africa is among the few companies in the world that trains competitors juts to live our slogan “Let’s grow together”.

Data visualisation for good

To ensure we add more value to businesses, this May we introduced Data Visualisations services to companies. The new service will provide infographics designing service to organisations to reap more benefits from data-driven content under their marketing and communication endeavours.

Unlike others, the infographics are affordable and customisable according to the client’s needs as we put stories first over graphics.

In news production we have started publishing Dar es Salaam stock Exchange market data every evening as well as commodities data from Ministry of Industry and Trade thrice a week.

The data-driven stories are always published on our website and social media and we happy that the government has relaxed the statistics law, opening more interests to other fellow journalists to invest in Data Journalism.

We believe that official data we publish will guide investors, farmers and the general public in making their daily business and life decisions.

• Nukta Africa now balances the equilibrium between the audience it serves and its internal growth on branding.
• Charles Nduku remind us on how we should improve our brands while increasing the quality of services we offer to our clients.

For a while our organisation has been highly known for training and provision of impactful data-driven news content.

Everyone at our company, Nukta Africa, is always strive to learn and train other colleagues on new data-driven and digital storytelling techniques.

Apart from training, our editorial team has been publishing stories of different individuals and companies that are making impacts in technology and other innovative projects. Like any media company, we have found ourselves helping personal and organisations brands grow.

Our dedication to helping others grow by training and providing content that they can make decisions with, sometimes make us forget our internal responsibility to boost our own brands as well as our company. This is a problem of many journalists or media.

At Nukta Africa, where the whole team is composed by millenials, internal trainings are key and productive tools to impact us with new skills that help increase productivity and increase the quality of services we deliver to our clients at all aspects.

To ensure we learn new skills on personal and organisation branding, we found it was necessary to bring an external trainer to share with us the ABCs on how we build our brands.

Mr Charles Nduku also known as “Mr Brand”, one of the best public speakers in branding issues, made us aware of how we can improve our brands while increasing the quality of services we offer to our clients.

Mr Nduku gave insights on things to consider when building a personal or internal brand including ability to create something that you will be known for and coachability.

Coachability is one of the important elements that identify an individual or an organisation. This why Nukta Africa team is open for learning new things everyday and impart skills to others to increase productivity.

Also, we learnt that persistence is a crucial aspect that makes any company strong and much known positively. This is exactly what we want to achieve for our team members and the organisation in general.

We want to work tirelessly to produce high quality data-driven content and deliver impactful training on data and digital storytelling to individuals and organisations despite resource challenges.

Internal trainings like this one from Mr Brand are key for any company regardless is a startup or a big company.

Though we do offer training to other organisations, we also learn. This continuous process of sharing skills is what make us leave our slogan “Let’s grow together”.

• The drastic changes in the media industry has forced journalists to update themselves constantly.
• Nukta Africa is helping journalists and other storytellers to exploit emerging journalism skills that is why set to introduce short courses from early November.

The evolution of journalism is simply a story that can be told by any journalist in the field or anyone has witnessed the transformation of prestigious industry. A lot have changed overtime from news collection, processing, dissemination and consumption behavior.

The industry has changed from depending journalists to provide breaking news after hours or a day to a time where any one in the community can generate news fast and share with the public instantly.

From using the primitive tools in news collection and dissemination such as notebooks, pen or old model analog cameras, to a time where everyone can use his or her mobile phone and many other digital tools in news gathering and storytelling. These stories can be published in all types of media: text, audio, video and pictures.

The drastic changes in the media industry has simply taken us (journalists) to the world where you need constant updates of skills sometimes almost everyday to remain relevant in the market and provide quality news stories in friendly formats.

Unlike the past, some of these emerging skills in journalism are not available in our prestigious universities or colleges.

These skills such as data storytelling, fact checking, uses of various emerging digital tools such as Google Earth or 360 videos are often provided by institutions or companies mainly from the west which are investing hard to learn and exploit these skills and share with journalists.

Absence of a reliable center for emerging journalism skills in Tanzania has disadvantaged practicing journalists as well as media students who are supposed to be well prepared for the ever changing market.

To help Tanzania’s media industry compete with the world, we need to fill in the existing knowledge gaps, which is our main reason why established Nukta Africa, a digital media and technology company that specializes in research, training and development of data and digital driven news content.

Despite constant changes in the media industry, there are multiple skills that any journalist should not miss. Those skills include:-

Digital Skills

There may be journalists who take their mobile phones as just mere handsets that facilitate communication with sources, without knowing that the same handset can be considered as a newsroom.

National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) emphasises that the use of digital gadgets like mobile phones make the reporting faster and easier than the past.

Journalists who can use their smartphones for quality journalism such as taking pictures, videos, writing, editing and disseminating news are highly likely to secure jobs at any news organisation in the world or work as successful independent online news publishers.

Beside using smartphones, journalists need to know how to use basic digital tools or platforms that can add value to the stories they produce or increase engagement with their audience. There are many open source digital tools like Juxtapose, Google Maps, Google Earth, Atlas etc which when used well can uncover hidden stories we never thought such increase in urbanisation, land conflict and climate change.

The ability to demonstrate what we need to tell through digital tools helps journalists attract more audience attention and deliver the complex message fast.

For instance, Nukta Africa uses these tools in storytelling and training journalists to explore insights that cannot easily understood without illustration or visualisations.

Data Literacy

There is buzzing word currently which says data is the new oil. Everything we do now is all about data from our social media accounts details to our monthly bills. Also, governments produces data everyday including largest surveys of which some consume large amount of taxpayers money. However, few are used my journalists to produce impactful stories that can help make decision on their daily lives.

With all these data on our disposal, journalists requires to have data journalism skills that will enable them question numbers and uncover hidden stories. Data-driven stories are key in boosting transparency and accountability in both public and private sectors.

Most of the skills needed in this area includes the ability to know various sources of data, scrap, analyse, visualize and narrate such data stories in the way even our grandmothers in villages understands. Data literacy not only equip journalists to produce unique stories that can compete in the market but also prepare them to work in any industry and escape the ongoing media retrenchments.

Apart from journalistic benefits, data-driven stories help the public make decisions. A farmer waits for the commodities data to sale his or her produce. Also, somewhere a customer is monitoring the same data to buy affordable and quality products.

Though data journalism is uncommon in our higher education, we at Nukta Africa, we have decided to offer cost friendly and localised training that would bridge the knowledge gap existing in the market.

Strive to be a multimedia journalist

Before recent digital transformation, it was uncommon to see one newsroom is producing newspapers and video content at the time. A radio station was just a radio station even if it had a sister television station. The radio station staff were just dedicated staff the same to Tv guys. However, it’s quite different today.

Today our newsrooms are becoming much more converged and multimedia. Print newsroom are embedding online Tvs and podcast production in their newsrooms. Radio stations are recording their interviews and air them live on Youtube.

Most of the content produced is disseminated in various types of media such as text, pictures, data visuals, videos and audio apart from those going to the newspaper. Largest print media companies like Mwananchi Communications in Tanzania, are the one leading on digital transformation and they are not longer print media but multimedia.

For the journalists to survive in such converged newsrooms, they need to have multimedia skills that will help them fit in the market. There is no newsroom being print or online like Nukta would hire or work with individual who is single skilled in either radio or newspaper alone .

Ready to be a journalist now just be a text, and audio-visual person. You will win.

Fact Checking skills

With ever increasing fake news online, a modern journalist has no option than to have skills how to fact check images, information, social media posts and videos.

A recent report released by the Open University says one of the conditions which make a journalist or a media to be trusted by the audience is the ability to filter and search for facts before publishing or airing any news content.

We have been telling our trainees in our past training session that fact checking not only make you and your news organisation credible, it also prevents unnecessary damage to the community.

Before feeding the audience, a journalist must thrive to ensure the information presented are true and fit the context.

Analytical Skills

Its has been common for many journalists to report what happened famously known as “He/she said journalism”. However, with the growing citizen journalism and increase in uptake of social media news, such kind of reporting is becoming obsolete.

Like any other crucial career, journalists required to have high analytical skills that would help them to develop stories which will go beyond the traditional 5Ws and H. We need to answer basic questions like “So what?” or “Why should we care?”

The ability to analyse and contextualise the content you develop, is one of most lucrative skills needed in the content industry by now. Fewer journalist have these skills.

To be a good analytical journalist, you need to get more insights from various sources and highlights the meaning of such content in every work you do. Every time ask yourself: What does this mean?. This analytical ability distinguish common journalists and great journalists. Just decide which type of journalist do you want to be.

Aggressiveness

Aggressiveness is one of the most required trait required by any individual be a journalist or farmer. However, journalists need to be more than the average.

To be a successful journalist, you need to be more aggressive in finding story ideas, sources, new skills, and ways to navigate barriers to your reporting.

Digital Security

Digital transformation has not only changed news consumption behavior but also the level of security to media practitioners. With more works or communication done online, it is better journalists and their newsrooms protect themselves from external malicious attacks.

Internews says journalists need to have multiple skills on using a combination of tools and habits to prevents themselves and their sources from being secretly monitored by enemies. This also prevent access or tampering with their electronically-stored information or communications, and interfering with their electronic devices or programs. Digital security skills now for everyone not only investigative journalists.

These skills are just compliments to the basic skills that every journalist should have such interview and writing skills. All these skills are essential for any journalist’s career growth and in making an impact in the community.

Nukta Africa has recognized the need of sharing such emerging knowledge and skills that is why it has introduced short courses from early November 2019. In these short courses, journalism students, practicing journalists, public relations practitioners and researchers will be able to master one of these skills and equip themselves with the market changes.

Nuzulack Dausen is the CEO and Executive Editor of Nukta Africa who has training journalists on Data Journalism, Fact Checking and Multimedia Storytelling. Tulinagwe Malopa is the Communication & Event Management Lead at Nukta Africa. She also covers Innovation and Technology beat at www.nukta.co.tz.