The Big Tech Investigation Lab is an intensive, five-day program that goes through the main issues facing the coverage of Big Tech in Latin America, exploring importante topics and going deep in potential solutions. The first edition happened in August 2024.
The second edition of the training will take place at the Harmony Hotel in Nosara, Costa Rica, from 8 to 12 of September, 2025.
Further details about the training course will be revealed to selected journalists.
See below our list of trainers.
Niamh McIntyre
Niamh McIntyre is a senior reporter on the Bureau of Investigative Journalism‘s Big Tech team and was a 2023 AI Accountability Fellow at the Pulitzer Center. Niamh was the lead reporter on TBIJ's "digital sweatshops" series, reporting on exploitation faced by content moderators around the world, the secret workforce training Amazon's surveillance systems and the gig workers training facial recognition software used to detain protesters in Russia. Before joining TBIJ, McIntyre spent four years as a data journalist at The Guardian, where she worked on data-driven stories including investigations into fossil fuel companies’ spending on climate-related search ads, UK schools’ use of crowdfunders to cover basic supplies, and the secretive use of algorithms in local government child protection systems.
Joseph Cox
Joseph Cox is an award-winning investigative journalist focused on generating impact and co-founder of 404 Media. His investigations have triggered hundreds of millions of dollars worth of fines against major telecoms; shut down data brokers; stopped companies selling location data linked to abortion clinics; pushed lawmakers to write new privacy legislation; and touched the world of technology, crime, and surveillance in countless other ways.
Gabriel Geiger
Gabriel Geiger is a (newly) São Paulo–based journalist with Lighthouse Reports, a non-profit investigative newsroom. He focuses on technology and algorithmic accountability reporting and his work has been recognized by the Philip Meyer Award and the European Press Prize, among others. His investigations have appeared in outlets including WIRED, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, Bloomberg, and The Guardian.
Luis Assardo
Luis Assardo is a freelance Digital Security trainer, Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) researcher and data-investigative journalist. Working on the intersection of technology, education and freedom of speech he explores the impact of the internet in our society and how to deal with digital risks. Award winner for his investigations and research about disinformation, troll factories, hate speech, online extremism, and influence operations (IO). Based in Berlin, he works with the Holistic Protection Collective (HPC), Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF), and other Human Rights organizations to provide protocols, risk assessment, and training to journalists under attack. Founder of Confirmado, a Guatemalan project to fight disinformation since 2018. He shares opinions in the Diario de Centroamérica (DCA) and Vector Crítico his newsletter in Spanish.
Maria Teresa Ronderos
María Teresa Ronderos is co-founder and director of the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism, CLIP, with around 30 investigations that cross borders, carried out in collaboration with almost 100 media outlets in various Latin American countries and abroad. She has published several books, including 5 en Humor y Guerras Recicladas (Aguilar, 2007 and 2014). She participates in several boards of organizations committed to improve, protect and strengthen journalism in the world. Her investigative work and as digital entrepreneur has been awarded with the international awards Ortega & Gasset, Moors Cabot and King of Spain with the Simón Bolívar Colombian national award for her career.
Pablo Medina
Pablo Medina Uribe is an editor and a digital investigator at the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism, CLIP, focusing on unmasking who orchestrates and pays for digital manipulation operations. He has been part of teams that have won the Simón Bolívar, Tom Renner, and Online Journalism Awards. Before CLIP, he worked as editor-in-chief of Colombian fact-checking outlet Colombiacheck, as a journalist for La Silla Vacía, Señal Colombia and AS/COA, as a fact-checker for The New York Times Syndicate, and as a freelancer for various outlets such as Democracy Now!, Sports Illustrated, OkayAfrica, Roads & Kingdoms, and the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
Jade Drummond
Jade Drummond is a Brazilian journalist, specialist in Digital Journalism and Operations Director at Núcleo Jornalismo - a data-driven technology news website based in Brazil that publishes investigations and analysis about the impact of digital platforms and artificial intelligence in society. She is responsible for managing different projects developed by Núcleo, including BotPonto, winner of the top prize for Innovation and Experimentation in the Cláudio Weber Abramo Data Journalism Award in 2022. She was a fellow at the ICFJ Emerging Media Leaders program in 2023, in Washington D.C. and New York, when she worked as a visiting fellow at The Verge.
Rodolfo Almeida
Rodolfo Almeida is a visual journalist and information designer based in São Paulo, Brazil. Specialized in data visualizations and visual storytelling, he's an editor at Núcleo Jornalismo and responsible for infographics at Sumaúma. He holds a graduate degree in Journalism from PUC-SP and a Master's in graphic design from Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, where he researched graphical representations of climate crisis data. He covers socioenvironmental issues and how they relate to technology and has collaborated with a variety of institutions such as Nexo Jornal, Estadão, Center for Climate Crime Analysis, European Commission, and more.