Neo4j announced today the 2022 Neo4j Connected Data Fellowship in partnership with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
The fellowship, first initiated in 2017, is inspired by how graph databases strengthen reporting and help journalists understand large datasets during ICIJ’s prize-winning investigations, including the Panama Papers, Pandora Papers, and the FinCEN Files. The 2022 fellowship brings an independent, dedicated data scientist to work with the ICIJ to help make sense of complex data and promote greater transparency.
The ICIJ has begun their search for the 2022 Connected Data Fellow.
Pierre Romera, Chief Technology Officer at the ICIJ, oversees technology and security to ensure the ICIJ’s global network of reporters have all the tools they need to thrive.
“ICIJ created the biggest trove of documents to exist within a news organization – more than 60 million files in various formats across multiple, often interconnected datasets. In addition to breaking new investigations, we continue to dig into the data we already have to break new stories. Working to apply graph data science practices will accelerate this endeavor.
The ICIJ remains one of the best places to innovate around journalism. We are independent, and our only focus is producing stories that meaningfully change the world. We appreciate Neo4j’s generosity to help us further our goals.”
Emil Eifrem, CEO at Neo4j, shares the inspiration behind the Connected Data Fellowship program.
“Investigative journalism involves finding indirect connections, and starting with the Panama Papers, the ICIJ team showed the power of being able to trace these connections at scale. By putting terabytes of complex, messy, heterogeneous data in a graph, the team was able to understand the data and recognize patterns.
This experience was exceptionally eye-opening because, for the first time, we saw the global impact that graph database technology can have in the hands of investigative journalists. This inspired Neo4j to launch the Connected Data Fellowship and support the future of investigative journalism.”
Neo4j is committed to empowering investigative journalists and has supported four of the five key investigations published in the last decade, including the 2015 Swiss Leaks, 2016 Panama Papers, 2017 Paradise Papers, and most recently, the 2021 Pandora Papers.
