1st Place – Brazil – Mariana Ochs: The Stack – A Critical Literacy of Computational Infrastructures

Mariana Ochs

Profile:

Mariana Ochs is a designer, journalist and the education coordinator of EducaMídia, Brazil’s largest media literacy program, with a focus on teacher training. She has a Graduate Certificate in Digital Literacy from the University of Rhode Island and a Master’s Degree in Communications at the University of São Paulo, where she researched algorithmic literacy in K-12. She is the co-author of the Media Literacy Guide and creator of EducaMídia’s pioneering “Media Literacy and AI” suite of resources, among other widely accessed reference books and materials. She currently serves on the National Committee for Human Rights Education in Brazil’s Ministry of Human Rights.

Project:

The Stack is a media literacy prototype that invites high school students to uncover and critically explore the hidden socio-technical layers of digital life—from algorithmic personalization to planetary resource extraction. Grounded in tech philosopher Benjamin Bratton’s theoretical model of planetary computation (2016) and Nichols and LeBlanc’s theory of civic media ecologies (2021), and aligned with national computing standards in Brazil, the resource unpacks six layers—User, Interface, Address, City, Cloud, and Earth—using a blend of critical media literacy, AI and algorithmic literacy, and inquiry-based pedagogy. Each layer becomes an entry point for multidisciplinary guided inquiry and hands-on civic action. Students might create a “biography” of a digital device from mineral extraction to e-waste, map algorithmic filter bubbles, imagine innovative uses for screens in public spaces, or design a more ethical app interface. They are encouraged not only to analyze how systems operate, but to question their environmental, political, and social implications—and to imagine more just, inclusive alternatives.

2nd Place – United States – Pallavi Guha: What We Wish We Knew: Bridging Generations through Civic and News Media Literacy Initiative for Seniors in an Age of AI-Driven Misinformation

Pallavi Guha

Profile:

Pallavi Guha is the Director of Research, Publications, and Professional Advancement at the National Communication Association. Her research and collaborations have informed initiatives cited by the White House Task Force on Online Harassment and have reached over 930 libraries worldwide through her book, Hear #MeToo in India. She is an award-winning media researcher and a former international journalist with over 20 years of experience. Guha has a Ph.D. in journalism and a graduate certificate in Women’s Studies from the University of Maryland. Before coming to academia, Dr. Guha was a journalist, working for leading media organizations, including BBC News and The Times of India.

Project:

Bridging Generations is an intergenerational experimental civic and news media literacy program connecting senior citizens (Baby Boomers) with a group of Media Scholars program university students (Gen Z) enrolled in the College Park Scholars program at the University of Maryland. 

Students will be trained not only as critical media consumers but as community educators to design and deliver workshops at senior centers and libraries, helping participants navigate today’s complex information environment. The project includes three components:

1. Learning Labs for Seniors: Interactive workshops led by students that introduce key concepts (credibility evaluation, platform algorithms, synthetic image/text detection, news sourcing habits, and “pause-and-verify” models). Seniors will engage in active learning to identify misinformation and verify information generated by generative AI, helping demystify the technology.
2. Co-Creation of a “Community Misinformation Playbook”: Students and seniors will collaboratively identify online misinformation challenges and generate best-practice guidelines, red flags, and response strategies.
3. Reflective Media Dialogues: Facilitated discussions in which seniors share lived experiences navigating news and digital media, while students reflect on generational gaps in trust, political socialization, and platform use.

3rd Place – India – Syed Nazakat: Taking Media Literacy and Digital Safety to the Masses

Syed Nazakat

Profile:

Syed Nazakat is an award-winning Indian journalist, media entrepreneur, founder and CEO of DataLEADS, a technology and digital media company basedin India and Singapore, focused on building stronger public-interest media, strengthening digital resilience, and advancing AI preparedness at scale. Under his leadership, DataLEADS has partnered with leading technology companies along with media and engineering institutions, governments, and civil society organisations to design and deliver large-scale initiatives on information and AI literacy, infodemic response, data verification, and AI preparedness.  He serves on several international boards and advisory bodies, including The New Humanitarian (Geneva) and Chair of the Board, Asian Center for Journalism (ACFJ) at Ateneo de Manila University (Philippines). He previously served on the Working Group on Artificial Intelligence and the Information Space at the Forum on Information and Democracy (France), contributing to global policy recommendations aimed at democratic governance of AI and strengthening the information ecosystem. He holds B.Sc degree from India and Master’s degree in Journalism from the Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines.

Project:

The news and information literacy programme brings together media professionals, educators, community workers, and community radio networks to promote information literacy, digital safety, and civic education in India. Built on a scalable Training of Trainers (ToT) model, the project has created a nationwide network of 250 media literacy trainers ​based in 20+ states delivering large-scale digital resilience programmes to last-mile communities. It has also trained 60+ Community Radio stations broadcasting in 15+ languages to reach diverse regional audiences. Through its Innovation Lab, the project supported 10 organisations to develop localised approaches to media literacy and digital safety, helping communities build resilience in the evolving digital ecosystem.  Designed for scale and adaptability, the programme combines design thinking with community-led interventions to build a future-ready framework for information literacy, digital citizenship, and resilient communities.

3rd Place – Philippines/Baltics – Marlon Julian Nombrado: Media and AI Literacy Community Workshops: Manila to the Baltics

Marlon Julian Nombrado

Profile:

Marlon Julian Nombrado is educator, designer, and founder of an award-winning media literacy organization based in the Philippines. As one of the co-founders of Out of The Box (OOTB), Marlon has published educational materials, facilitated over 150 workshops, and designed high impact programs and campaigns on digital rights, disinformation, and youth civic engagement. Along with OOTB, he was awarded First Prize in the 2021 UNESCO Global Media & Information Literacy Awards. Currently, he is based in northern Europe pursuing a masters degree in Service Design Strategies and Innovations with an Erasmus Mundus scholarship. He has participated in several leadership programs abroad including the International Visitor Leadership Program, World Expression Forum, and Salzburg Global Seminar.

Project:

The project will run co‑creative workshops focusing on innovative assessment design for Media and AI Literacy. These workshops will integrate insights from tech‑enhanced assessment practices and draw on novel competency frameworks like the OECD’s Media and Artificial Intelligence Literacy (MAIL) Framework. By engaging educators and learners from the Philippines and select Baltic countries in a shared hybrid design process, it will prototype assessment practices designed for today’s digital environments. These workshops will adapt and expand upon educational materials developed by Out of The Box, a Manila-based media literacy organization with a strong track record of accessible and socially grounded pedagogy.

3rd Place – United States – Sheri Lambert: Reimagining Media Literacy for Gen Z & Alpha: Case-based Learning in the Age of AI

Sheri Lambert

Profile:

Sheri Lambert is a professor of practice in marketing at the Fox School of Business at Temple University. She is a recognized and respected authority on brand management & strategy, customer relationship management (CRM), marketing research and digital marketing. Prior to academia, Sheri was a distinguished marketing executive who held senior leadership positions within some of the world’s largest marketing research consulting firms. She brings a distinctive blend of skills and experiences to serve as an important bridge between the worlds of practice and academia.

Project:

This project seeks to advance media literacy education by integrating the case method, a pedagogy traditionally associated with business schools, into undergraduate and graduate classrooms in ways that resonate with Gen Z and Gen Alpha learners. Instead of treating students as passive consumers of information, students will be positioned as decision-makers who must analyze real-world situations. Through structured debate, role play, and collaborative problem-solving, students learn to interrogate how media literacy decodes how brands, algorithms, and digital platforms influence consumer behavior. And further, how these dynamics shape culture and commerce. This project will develop a set of pedagogy-focused case studies and teaching notes that explicitly center media literacy themes. The focus is two-fold: 

1. Gen Z and Alpha contexts. Building cases around the platforms, communities, and media habits of younger audiences. 
2. AI and authenticity. Exploring how generative AI reshapes content creation, media & marketing, credibility, and authorship. 

While the case method is established in management education, applying it to media literacy and marketing represents an impactful pedagogical innovation. Cases will be openly shared, allowing adaptation across disciplines. The emphasis on AI, ethics, and civic engagement ensures students emerge as thoughtful contributors to a more just and equitable global media ecosystem.

Argentina

“Desinformación Revelada” Traveling Interactive Exhibit

Milena Rosenzvit

Profile:

Milena Rosenzvit coordinates the Education Program at Chequeado, which carries out Media and Information Literacy initiatives for citizens and the educational community, as well as data journalism and fact-checking education projects for journalists and communicators. Previously, she coordinated teacher training and science communication programs and teams in schools, participatory museums, camps, government projects, editorial projects, and TV. She enjoys interdisciplinary teams, values evidence-informed work, and is guided by perspectives of diversity and rights. She studied Biological Sciences at Universidad de Buenos Aires and has a Master’s degree in Education from Harvard University.

Project Description:

“Desinformación Revelada” (in English, “Revealed Disinformation”) is a traveling and interactive exhibition that invites participants to help the characters of three stories detect disinformation and prevent its circulation. We created it at Chequeado, with the support of Innovation for Change. The objective of this project is to raise awareness among citizens about the phenomenon of disinformation as a problem and the damage it causes, share tools and resources to battle it, and encourage the institutions we partner with to engage in the challenge of mitigating it.

Through 2023, we presented “Desinformación Revelada” at events such as: “The Night of the Museums” in the City of Buenos Aires, at the Cultural Center of Science; the “Festival Clave 13/17” at the Recoleta Cultural Center in the City of Buenos Aires; the “Media Party” at the Konex Cultural Center; the “First International Congress of Wikimedia, Education, and Digital Cultures” held at the National University of La Plata; and the “Social Sciences Fair” for students and graduates of the University of Di Tella. In 2024, Desinformación Revelada was implemented ¡at Lollapalooza music festival! Today, more than 30,000 people have already played it. The project has received very positive feedback and is ready to scale to larger audiences and new territories.. 

Australia

“Adult Media Literacy Engagement Survey and Toolkit”

Tanya Notley, Michael Dezuanni, Sora Park, T.J. Thomson, Aimee Hourigan and Heather Ford

Profile:

Dr Tanya Notley is Associate Professor in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts and a member of the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University where she leads the Advancing Media Literacy in Australia research program. She is internationally recognised in the field of engaged, practice-based media research in areas of digital inclusion, media literacy, and human rights media. Tanya has worked extensively with a range of organisations to use media education to address inequalities. She has led 10 media literacy research projects since 2017 including two longitudinal national media literacy surveys (one for children and another for adults). She currently leads a national adult media literacy project that collaborates with national public cultural institutions to develop evidence-based interventions. Tanya is a founding member of Australian Media Literacy Alliance and served as Co-Chair 2020-23.

Project Description:

Media literacy empowers citizens to become competent and responsible media producers and consumers. Past research demonstrates that increasing people’s capacity for critical thinking in relation to their media use increases their ability to detect misinformation, which is a pressing issue in contemporary society. However, our research shows that most adult Australians lack confidence in their media abilities and only 39% say they can discern misinformation. More importantly, this research reveals an uneven distribution of media abilities across sociodemographic groups, while 30% of adults have never had any form of media literacy support across their lifetime.

As such, This project brings together four partner organisations (POs)—the national broadcaster, a national archive and museum, and the national association for library and information professionals—to develop effective media literacy initiatives that strategically target adult groups. To inform these initiatives our project is carrying out research that identifies the needs and priorities for this education. To achieve this, the project uses innovative methods to examine where, when and how adult Australians encounter misinformation online and measure people’s ability to take appropriate steps to avoid, analyse, and detect this. Specifically, the project research aims to: 1. Identify adult engagement patterns with misinformation online, through a nationally representative activity-based survey; 2. Uncover the diverse experiences adults have with misinformation online, through a diary study; 3. Develop a model that enables national public cultural institutions to use evidence to design, deliver and evaluate targeted media literacy training programs and resources, through the development of a toolkit and a series of workshop events.

Azerbaijan

“Desinformación Revelada” Traveling Interactive Exhibit

Melda Yildiz

Profile:

Melda Yildiz is a global scholar, media educator, instructional designer, and author. Melda served as a Fulbright Scholar in Turkmenistan (2009) and Azerbaijan (2016) teaching and conducting research integrating media education in P16 classrooms. Yildiz co-authored, published, and presented on topics including media and information literacy, instructional technology, and multicultural and global education. She received an EdD from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in math and science and instructional technology, and an MS from Southern Connecticut State University in instructional technology. She majored in teaching English as a foreign language at Bogazici University, in Turkey.

Project Description:

The Baku American Center in Azerbaijan, renowned for its language support programs, facilitates the Academic Writing Lab, which caters to participants with varying levels of English proficiency. Since my Fulbright assignment in 2016, I have been actively engaged in teaching academic writing at BAC. As a Fulbright scholar, I contributed to the academic landscape by imparting vital writing skills and techniques to students, professionals, and educators in Azerbaijan. The Elele – “Hand in Hand” (in Turkish) initiative seeks to propel the Academic Writing Lab’s impact by introducing a digital platform that leads to a conference presentation and publications and invites opportunities for answering Rowe’s rhetorical “where to next?” This platform will serve as a repository for diverse media literacy projects, papers, stories, and instructional materials crafted by global participants. Harnessing the power of AI, it will offer innovative grammar and language software to accommodate participants with limited English proficiency, ensuring their contributions are accessible and impactful.

Key Components

Digital Platform Development: The PAR project will establish an advanced digital platform that will host participants’ work while incorporating AI-driven language support tools, making content creation and comprehension accessible to individuals with varying levels of English proficiency.

Weekly Online Sessions: Renowned academics will be invited to engage with students through weekly online sessions across 15 weeks. These sessions will serve as a platform for sharing wisdom, offering guidance, and fostering a collaborative learning environment for media literacy education.

Certificate and Presentation Opportunity: Participants completing the Academic Writing Lab will receive certificates of completion and participation. Furthermore, they will showcase their projects at the culminating SpeedTech conference in a concise 5-minute, 10-slide format, fostering public speaking skills and knowledge dissemination.

Philippines

EMAIL Adventures – Environment Media And Information Literacy Adventures

Kyle V. Aboy

Profile:

Kyle V. Aboy is an environmental educator, MIL advocate, and storyteller. He graduated from  Mindanao State University-General Santos with the degree of BS in Biology, majoring in Microbiology. He completed the Environmental Leadership and Sustainability Accelerator Program organized by Chili Padi Academy from Yale-National University of Singapore in 2019.  He is a certified Greenducator under the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Environmental Management Bureau XII, which helps champion environmental education and awareness. He founded Ibaraki Academy to help the youth become champions of environmental conservation and protection. Kyle aspires to use MIL and storytelling to inspire and create positive stories for the environment.

Project Description:

EMAIL Adventures is a youth-led adventure storytelling and immersive experience in promoting media and information literacy, environment, and scientific literacy. Just like a famous tourist spot, we want to create a tour for young people to learn about media and information literacy, eco-literacy, and scientific literacy through a communication, education, and public awareness (CEPA) campaign. We want our target beneficiaries to be immersed in the history, culture, and societal problems that affect the environment, and how we can use media, and information literacy to spark change and create meaningful stories. After the immersive storytelling tours, participants are expected to create CEPA materials in their classrooms in different creative forms such as video, posters, digital campaigns, paintings, artworks, etc. These CEPA materials will be posted online and on different social media platforms. We want to teach media and information literacy in an innovative way, which is through immersive storytelling experiences. In the Philippines, learning in school is only confined to a classroom, yet I want young people to experience learning at a different level which is by exposing themselves to the environment and the history of the place.

Key Stages:

This project is divided into various stages. First is the EMPOWER stage, in the empower stage we will gather storytellers from different communities who can be tour guides who can share about the things that they are very passionate about in the environment. The tour guide for this will undergo training on how to lead a tour, how to teach media and information literacy, and incorporate eco and scientific literacy. The second stage is the ENCOUNTER, we will invite students from elementary and high school to join our immersive tours. Each tour can last from 3-5 hours, including the travel. In the encounter stage, students will be immersed in the different spots and learn about the place, how it is connected to eco-literacy, and what they can do to promote eco-messaging. The third stage is EXPRESS, after their encounter with nature and immersive experience in different spots, elementary and high school students are expected to create CEPA materials through different forms of medium or art which will be published online and offline.

Géraldine Wuyckens

1st Place: Géraldine Wuyckens – Belgium – Design Fiction in Media Education

Profile:

Géraldine Wuyckens holds a Master’s degree in Information and Communication Sciences, with a specialization in media analysis, from the Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain) in Belgium. She is currently working at UCLouvain as a teaching and research assistant in Information and Communication Sciences, and is conducting a doctoral thesis on the use of design fiction in media education. In this context, she has received three grants to take part in international research projects in Canada and is currently collaborating with the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM) and Concordia University for a period of four months. She already has several publications in international journals, including two major journals in her field (Media Education Research Journal and Journal Media Literacy Education).

Project Description:

Based on the practice of design fiction, she has developed a critical inquiry method in media education that encourages pupils to ask relevant questions about digital media and technology. She set up a design-based research project in September 2018 with Action Médias Jeunes, a non-profit organization, to develop activities about design fiction. As a continuation of previous work with them, she will develop an educational tool that they can share with secondary school teachers. The tool will include a set of participatory activities in which pupils are invited to prototype a technology of the future and to reflect on the potential consequences of their implementation in an imagined society.

Antonio López

2nd Place: Antonio López – Rome/USA – Ecomedia Literacy website

Profile:

Antonio López, Ph.D, is an expert curriculum designer, educator, trainer, and theorist with a research focus on bridging ecojustice and media literacy. He is a founding theorist and architect of ecomedia literacy and creator of the ecomedialiteracy.org website, which curates teaching resources. He has written numerous academic articles, essays, and four books: Ecomedia Literacy: Integrating Ecology into Media Education; Greening Media Education: Bridging Media Literacy with Green Cultural Citizenship; The Media Ecosystem: What Ecology Can Teach Us About Responsible Media Practice; and Mediacology: A Multicultural Approach to Media Literacy in the 21st Century. He is lead editor of the forthcoming Routledge Handbook of Ecomedia Studies. Currently he is Associate Professor of Communications and Media Studies at John Cabot University in Rome, Italy. Resources and writing are available at antonio-lopez.com.

Project Description:

Ecomedialiteracy.org will provide guides and materials for any educator who wants to “green” media, news, information, and digital literacy practice. It will feature a glossary of terms, curated web links for research, an overview of ecomedia studies, and student work. By building an international repository of lessons and media examples on media and environment, the aim is to innovate and extend the capacity of media literacy to meet 21st Century challenges.

Maarit Jaakkola

3rd Place: Maarit Jaakkola – Finland and Sweden – Media Literacy Actors’ Map

Profile:

Maarit Jaakkola is a Doctor of Social Sciences (Journalism) working as Co-Director at the Centre for Nordic Media Research Nordicom at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. She is also an Associate Professor at the Department of Journalism, Media and Communication (JMG) at the University of Gothenburg and an Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences (ITC) at Tampere University in Finland.

Jaakkola’s research is located at the intersection between media, culture and learning. In her research, Jaakkola is searching for connections between professional and non-professional media production, public and informal pedagogies, as well as cultural-studies approaches, preferring comparative studies in the Nordic region.

Project Description:

The Media Literacy Actor Map that we all need to navigate in the jungle: a visualization tool that shows how media literacy initiatives and projects are related to each other.  With it, you can see how your project relates to others’ and find partners doing similar work. There are numerous actors conducting media literary (ML) projects, often without knowing about each other. Researchers dealing with questions relevant for ML are not often aware of others with similar interests, as ML is not an explicit research field but an interdisciplinary area embedded in traditional disciplines. The Media Literacy Actor Map (ML Map) provides ML actors to fill in a simple questionnaire and based on the information provided, visualizes the MIL actor in question on a multi-sectional and multi-dimensional map online. The map will help educators, policymakers and scholars gain an overview of the scope and spread of ML initiatives or projects, and find which actors show the maximal differences from each other.

Madelyn Garcia

4th Place: Madelyn Garcia – Philippines – Meriam’s Online World Show

Profile:

Madelyn Garcia is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities, College of Arts and Sciences, University of the Philippines Los Baños. She holds a Master’s degree in Communication from the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication. Her research interests include media education, digital participation, and participatory and practice-focused studies in the field of media and information literacy.

Project Description:

In the Philippines, a country dubbed as the ‘social media capital of the world’ for six straight  years, the heavily saturated media ecosystem underscores a much heavier need to advance  media literacy among our younger media consumers and creators. The first of its kind as an edutainment material for digital media literacy, MOW: Meriam’s Online World TV series follows the story of Meriam, a 10-year-old girl, tech-savvy, active social media user, and likes playing online games; and Aunt Marla, early 30’s, tech-savvy, active social media user, and assumes as the guardian of Meriam.

The show tackles media related issues arising from Filipino kids’ experiences and practices in various online platforms. The five-episode series will be exhibited as an after-school viewing program with elementary pupils from Grades 6 to 9. Through discussions and activities about their behaviors, values, and mindsets, the pupils will relate to their own everyday experiences online, connect with other kids on how they are dealing with their digital environment, stimulating critical thinking, respect, and concern for others and ensuring the full potential of the series as a learning tool, at school and at home, towards a more meaningful understanding of their online environments.