Sarah Evans is news editor at Code for South Africa and the Data Journalism Academy – Africa’s first data journalism school. She and her team have spent the last three months building a data-driven newsroom and developing models for how this form of storytelling can be incorporated into newsrooms. She has a background in digital storytelling, having most recently worked at the Mail & Guardian’s online division.
Raymond Joseph is a veteran of South African print newsrooms. He has worked in senior editorial executive positions on a wide variety of daily and weekly national and regional publications. Joseph’s role at Code for South Africa has been to bring journalistic insight to the work of Code for South Africa, and to help embed a culture of data-driven storytelling in South African newsrooms. He has established himself as the “go to guy” for large southern African media companies needing to fix under-performing newsrooms and news desks, or refocus their editorial/content strategies. He has also consulted widely on media start-ups by large legacy media. He is also an experienced journalism trainer and, in recent years, has specialized in the use of Twitter as a journalism tool and the verification of social media content.
Roxanne Joseph is a digital and data journalist, focusing on social justice journalism. She studied at the Wits School of Journalism and has worked on the digital, political and mining news teams at eNCA and Bloomberg News. She also spent some time as a journalist in the NGO world before coming to Code for South Africa. There, she divides her time between campaign managing several storytelling and open data-based projects, and the Academy.
Daniela Q. Lépiz is a Costa Rican data journalist. She has a master’s degree in data journalism from the Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid, Spain. Currently involved with Code for South Africa as Data Editor for the Data Journalism Academy, Africa’s first data journalism school which offers training in data-driven storytelling to working journalists. She produces data driven analyses and articles for different publications. Daniela worked previously for Central American publications, including La Nación in Costa Rica, one of the first newspapers in Latin America to establish a data unit.
Lenina Rassool is the Communications Manager for Code for South Africa. She holds a National Diploma in journalism, spent six years in Women’s Magazines before moving to the Non-Profit sector where she has worked as the Communications Officer for ACTIVATE! Change Drivers – a network of over 2,000 young South Africans driving change across South Africa, as well as freelancing for various other organisations on social media and digital platforms, strategies and campaigns.
Julia Renouprez is a geographic data analyst with 18 years’ experience in geographic data analytics. Julia has extensive experience in training GIS users in GIS software, as well as non-GIS users in data pipeline and geographic data visualisation. Julia is a former School of Data fellow, and works for Code for South Africa as a Data Wrangler and Project Manager, and also provides training and mentoring through the Data Journalism Academy.
Lailah Ryklief is a newsroom developer at Code for South Africa’s Data Journalism Academy, training journalists from media houses across the country in the creation of data visualisations. She has trained interactive media production students at the University of Cape Town and has worked closely with GetSmarter on the development of online course material and quality-assurance in front-end development, graphic design and digital photography. She has also worked as a freelance front-end developer, print and graphic designer.
