*Open to News Organisations and Research Institutes only*

Conversational journalism is an increasingly hot topic in the media industry. Organisations have already begun experimenting with chatbots on platforms like Facebook Messenger, WeChat and Line, and many have plans to devote more resources to automated chat technology. At the same time, growing interest in voice products like Google Home and Amazon Alexa demands new ways of formatting stories beyond the traditional article.

How to get past bot-based subscription services to tell stories in creative ways — without imposing unrealistic workflows on our editorial colleagues — is a shared problem facing the industry. BBC Connected Studio and BBC News Labs are holding a collaborative #newsHACK event in London on the 24th and 25th of October to explore opportunities around conversational user interfaces.

Teams of academics, developers, UX designers, editorial staff and other media-enthused professionals are invited to register, as multi-skilled teams.

The Challenge

We’re looking for either:

Editorial tools that help produce content for conversational interfaces;
Unique audience experiences for conversational platforms or products.

We’re particularly interested in innovative prototypes using voice platforms and technologies, but teams are by no means limited to working in this area. While judges will select winners in each of the categories, the primary nature of the event is for networking and collaboration.

If you have any questions, please email us at connectedstudio@bbc.co.uk

Legal information

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#newsHACK: Conversational User Interfaces (CUI)