Journalism students develop news app for the functionally illiterate

Four UG Journalism students recently successfully presented De Beelddenker, an app to help 1.3 million functionally illiterate Dutch people to follow the news. An assignment from ex-professor Jeroen Smit for the course unit Entrepreneurial Journalism led to this promising innovation, which presents the news with the help of photos and videos. Functionally illiterate people who use the app also learn to read better because the text of the voiceover also appears on the image.

Benjamin de Bruijn, Floor Meijs, Milou Brand and Daan Hofstee won The Challenge, a competition for journalistic start-ups organized by the Dutch Journalism Fund, with De Beelddenker. Talks with potential partners are well underway, and the team is being supported by a professional advisor. Starting in September, the students want to work full-time on De Beelddenker and really bring it to market.