Who we are

AidInfoPlus is a Geneva-based nonprofit organization that is governed by an international board. It aims to empower journalists, civil society groups and aid workers to harness aid information and data with free online support and tailored on-site training  (learn more). AidInfoPlus works with an international network of aid data experts. It was founded and is headed by Robert Bourgoing.

Robert Bourgoing

Robert Bourgoing, CEO of AidInfoPlus, is an international development journalist, media trainer, global health and digital communications specialist. His interest for aid transparency and accountability dates back to 2003 when he joined the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, an experience that taught him about the complexities of aid transparency and sparked his interest for building capacity in this field (learn more). Robert worked and travelled in over sixty countries, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle-East and Asia.

 

constantarasEva Constantaras is a data journalism advisor with Internews. She has managed projects and reported from across East Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America on various topics. Eva’s Land Quest, an investigative series on exploitation of natural resources in Kenya has been recognized for its contribution to transparency in Kenya. As a Google Data Journalism Scholar in Spain and a Fulbright Fellow in Colombia and UNESCO in Paris, she developed training curricula for data journalism in environments with limited data access.

 

Cédric LombionCédric Lombion is a consultant and trainer in data wrangling and data journalism skills. He has been studying and working on open data and digital public services in France for several years. He dedicates part of his time to the School of Data international network, after having joined Open Knowledge as a Community manager and facilitating data workshops. Cédric studied Public and Political Communication with a focus on open data and digital public services. His interests cover a wide range of issues, such as data literacy and citizen mobilization.

 

medleyMichael Medley is a specialist in aid projects, transparency and politics, with more than 20 years’ experience of working in – and researching on – humanitarian aid. Michael leads a course on Development Project Management as part of an MA in International Development Studies programme in Bangkok. His specialties include monitoring and evaluation, capacity-building and training, analysis of the politics of aid, especially in humanitarian intervention. Particular geographic specialism in Sudan and South Sudan.

 

Jonathan StonemanJonathan Stoneman worked for the BBC for twenty years as researcher, producer, reporter, editor and finally Head of Training at World Service. Specialising mainly in central and eastern Europe, Jonathan reported for World Service from virtually every country of the former Warsaw Pact in the 1990s, before moving on to run the Macedonian and then the Croatian language services. In 2010 Jonathan became a freelance trainer, working increasingly with data and learning new techniques to introduce journalists to the wonders of Open Data.

 

 

More about Robert Bourgoing

For the past 25 years, I had the privilege to work in the field of international development and humanitarian aid in numerous developing countries. I dealt with aid information wearing different hats, using it and looking at it through different lenses. It started when I was a journalist in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Asia. I taught radio journalism in Africa, online journalism and investigative techniques in France, and I managed online communications for nine years at the Global Fund, the world’s largest financier of anti-AIDS, TB and malaria programs and an early champion of aid transparency and IATI signatory (see full CV).

AidInfoPlus is the sum of all the above. As a user and producer of aid data, a journalist reporting on aid and an insider of a major aid agency, with a foot in both worlds, I have learned that information by itself is not enough to bring about change (learn more). I believe that its transformative power can only be unleashed by enabling people to make sense of it and to use it; and that building capacity in this field is vital because mastering aid information for change is in the interest of all.