In June 2014 at the Global Editors Network Summit in Barcelona, several 2013 Nieman Fellows presented “!nstant” an innovative new app designed to help journalists and others make sense of breaking news and live events, distilling signals from the noise posted on social media channels. The app was one of nine finalists of the “Startups for News” Challenge.

The fellows first created !nstant as a project in their News and Participatory Media course, taught by Ethan Zuckerman at MIT. After presenting their idea at the Civic Media Conference at MIT in June 2013, the team received Knight Foundation grant to develop a fully functioning prototype of the open source app.

The four fellows behind the !nstant project are Ludovic Blecher, director of the Digital Innovation Press Fund Google & AIPG in France; Borja Echevarría de la Gandara, vice president, digital, for Univision News in Miami; Alexandra Garcia, senior video journalist at the New York Times; and Paula Molina, a Chilean broadcast journalist at BBC Mundo and Radio Cooperativa.