We sat down with #MigrahackTO mentor Howard Tam, principal and founder of ThinkFresh Group, to ask him about his involvement and how migrahack can help journalists.
What inspired you to take a mentor role in this project?
I was connected by Eliana, principal organizer of #MigrahackTO after I had been involved in Civic Tech. I was happy to participate as I am always happy to give back to the community what I know about hacks and design jams .
I really believe in the power of these tools and of the design process. I think that everybody should be able to access them and understand how they can best be used to solve complex societal problems.
How do journalists improve their ability to report stories from the types workshops we have at Migrahack?
I think this goes back to understanding that there are more stories out there than meet the eye. A large responsibility of journalists is to tell all the stories that are out there so that the public can have a deeper understanding of the issues. I think an event like Migrahack can help to provide activists, advocates, and journalists new tools to understand a large part of telling the story – and that is getting the right data to tell richer stories. This then allows for a deeper dive on these stories because the data doesn’t always say what you want it to say and that forces you to ask questions, learn other perspectives and add more value to the issues/stories you are writing about.
-
#MigrahackTO will take place on Friday,3rd November – Sunday 5th November for a full schedule and more info click here