Building innovative tools & products for online news media.
"The collaboration between
journalists,
technologists and business-side folks for news is absolutely crucial. You can't separate
the technology and the way that people consume news from the creation of the news
itself."
Irene Jay Liu, Google News Lab Lead (APAC) | News
Media
Lab Demo Day Judge
"The lesson for the industry is to
find
ways to open new ideas up to
more young people, so that they can find ways to create new products that they believe
in, and to find products that solve specific problems for their cohort of people."
Alan Soon, Co-Founder & CEO, Splice Media | News Media
Lab
Industry Mentor
About Us
An Innovation Lab
News Media Lab is an undergraduate innovation practicum offered at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication & Information (Nanyang Technological University Singapore).
Launched in 2019, the lab brings together student journalists, designers and developers from different schools (WKWSCI, Engineering, Computer Science and Art, Design & Media) to create news media storytelling tools and products for real industry clients, using a design thinking process.
In our lab, interdisciplinary teams work alongside faculty and assigned industry mentors from technology companies like Google, Facebook and Red Hat, as well as regional startup, Splice Media. At the end of a 13-week semester, the students will pitch their prototype ideas on Demo Day, and share their projects on our GitHub site so that anyone in the news media ecosystem can access them. To date, we’ve partnered with major media publications such as The Straits Times, Today, The Business Times and The New Paper.
In the inaugural run of News Media Lab, Google sponsored a prize to the student team with the best prototype. The prize was an all-expenses paid trip for 8 to attend Newsgeist Europe in Athens in July 2019.
At News Media Lab, we believe that students can play an active role in co-creating the future of news.
The Team
Course Instructors
Jessica Tan
Lecturer, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and InformationJessica Tan is a business journalism lecturer at Nanyang Technological University Singapore, where she also teaches online magazine and final year features projects. Lately, she has been exploring news media innovation through News Media Lab, an interdisciplinary practicum she designed and teaches. Jessica is part of the 2020 cohort of the 50WomenCan leadership program for journalism, sponsored by the Ford Foundation and the Democracy Fund.
Her journalism work has appeared in Dow Jones Newswires, Forbes Asia and The Straits Times. She has been a Forbes Asia contributor since 2006. Jessica also writes short stories, one of which won an Honourable Mention at the national Golden Point Award in 2013. Her short story, Dragon Girl, was anthologized in Twenty-Two New Asian Short Stories in 2016. She was awarded an NAC Arts Creation Grant in 2013 and earned her post-graduate degree at the Medill School of Journalism in 2002.
Joan Marie Kelly
Senior Lecturer, School of Art, Design and MediaJoan Marie Kelly is an artist who has an education and profession spanning four continents. She was educated in the USA, and has held a position as Senior Lecturer of Art at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore since 2005. Joan’s most recent international solo exhibitions were held in New York and New Delhi, and group exhibitions in Beijing, Italy, France, Bangladesh, Morocco, Mexico, Russia, Korea, Thailand, Mongolia, and Egypt. She spoke at the 2019 Athens Google Newsgiest. She is also the 2nd prize winner in the Glover Painting Prize, Australia. Her 2ndbook publication is titled Invisible Personas, where she is author and editor. Invisible Personas, is a retrospective of Kelly’s artwork accompanied by personal narrative, 42 color images of her paintings, and 4 essays by New York Art critic David Cohen, artist Sarah Schuster, art historian Dr. Pamela Karimi and Cultural Theorist Dr. Bhaskar Mukhopadyay.
Showcase
Our Digital Products
Past News Clients
Our Industry Partners
Deal Street Asia
Deal Street Asia (DSA) is a subscription-based digital media company, focused on Asian financial news. Established in 2014, they cover articles on private equity, venture capital mergers and acquisitions, listings and business of startups across Asia. They are based in Singapore with a team of journalists across Asia.
The Conversation
The Conversation is a network of not-for-profit media outlets that publish news stories on the Internet that are written by academics and researchers, under a free Creative Commons licence. Curated by professional editors, The Conversation offers informed commentary and debate on the issues affecting our world.
TODAY
TODAY is a Singapore English-language digital news provider under Mediacorp. It was formerly a national free daily newspaper. Mediacorp, the newspaper's parent company is Singapore's largest media broadcaster and provider in Singapore and the only terrestrial television broadcaster in the country.
Garage @ The Business Times
Garage is a portal under The Business Times that provides news and analysis about the region's booming startup ecosystem. Located at bt.sg/garage, the new vertical brings BT's speciality - the investors' perspective - to coverage of startup news and issues aimed at existing readers and new ones interested in the startup space.
ST Schools
The Straits Times Schools department launched in 2005 with a mission to engage young readers with stories about them. At the same time it aims to equip tomorrow’s voters with an understanding of their country through its current affairs, heritage, culture and education landscape. The department produces weekly magazines IN and Little Red Dot, which accompany The Straits Times to secondary and primary schools on Monday and Tuesday respectively. The titles at once focus on the cultural trends, causes and career interests of its young readers, as well as learning activities in English language, values education and critical thinking.
The New Paper
The New Paper (TNP) is Singapore's newest freesheet. It started out as a paid newspaper in 1988, and through the years, has made its mark in the journalism world, winning international prizes from The Society for News Design, The Society of Publishers in Asia, and World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers for excellence in infographics, photojournalism, and reporting. In Dec, 2016, it was revamped and became a free newspaper after merging with My Paper.