If you’d like to learn more about open-source digital research and the methodologies behind it,  Media Development Foundation (MDF) invites you to the practical webinar: "Introduction to Open-Source Research and Verification of Digital Materials”.  You will learn general search techniques and verification principles used in open-source research; will understand how to approach digital research and verification and how these approaches differ depending on profession and region.

About the Speaker:

Narine Khachatryan, based in Yerevan, Armenia, is an open-source researcher and trainer with Bellingcat who focuses on social, economic, human rights, and political issues. Narine’s main focus lies on training researchers and journalists in the South Caucasus and Central Asia on how to conduct open-source investigations, with the goal of popularizing and promoting the use of OSINT methodologies and techniques in these regions. During her time with Bellingcat, she has also led and co-led digital verification workshops in a number of countries worldwide, including Senegal, Jordan, England, Australia, and the Netherlands.

The spots are very limited and will be chosen based on the filled application. 

The application deadline is 6 October.

Participants’ Level and Requirements: 
Bellingcat workshops require an intermediate level of proficiency with online and digital research. Participants who have attended numerous digital and open-source workshops may not learn a lot of new techniques during our workshops but may find the case studies and one-on-one work with Bellingcat trainers useful. Participants who are not very technically proficient (e.g. are not familiar with how to use social networks or online mapping/satellite services) may have a hard time keeping up with this webinar. 

During this webinar, the speaker will not put a heavy emphasis on teaching topics that require advanced training and experience, such as writing scripts for scraping data or automating tasks. Ms. Khachatryan will focus more on teaching investigative processes and methodologies that do not require pre-existing mastery of a coding language (e.g. Python) or expensive application (e.g. Maltego XL).

The webinar "Introduction to Open-Source Research and Verification of Digital Materials” is taking place under the "Hacking the fake news challenge that is happening on 22-23 October 2020. The hackathon is organized by Media Development Foundation- a leading Georgian NGO in media monitoring, teaching media literacy, and fact-checking, together with a Tbilisi-based creative enterprise ForSet • ფორსეტი in partnership with Bellingcat and Facebook Journalism Project with the financial contribution of Zinc Network. Media partner of the hackathon is Civil.ge.

Disclaimer: According to Bellingcat policy, the webinar is open for everyone except the government officials, military, and police forces.