With less than seven weeks left until IJ WEEK begins, the program’s full schedule is now complete. More than 130 speakers from 65 countries, including esteemed journalists, data gurus, and experts will lead the sessions at IJ WEEK, which will feature more than 50 panels, workshops, and networking sessions across 13 thematic areas.
The full program also includes multiple Editor’s Clinics, providing participants the opportunity to speak one-on-one with a veteran editor to pitch or workshop a story, or just get career advice. Confirmed editors include: Daniel Howden (Lighthouse Reports), Wahyu Dhyatmika (TEMPO), Rana Sabbagh, Ides Debruyne (Journalismfund Europe), Débora Votquenne (VVOJ), Emmanuel Dogbevi (News Bridge Africa), Paul Radu (OCCRP), Martha Mendoza (Frontline), and more.
Participants will also get the opportunity to meet with like-minded journalists at networking sessions that either focus on a particular reporting topic or a specific geographic area, in the regional networking sessions.
View IJ WEEK’s full program. Below are selected sessions from some of the event’s specialty tracks.
Data Track
From the Sigmas
Data helps not only analyze stories but also visualize and explain them to an audience, at times making them easier to understand. At IJ WEEK, we will offer multiple sessions with winners of the Sigma Awards, who will talk about using AI effectively for investigations, uncovering human rights abuses, and deploying satellite and trade data to investigate supply chains and environmental degradation.
These panels will feature speakers like Fernanda Aguirre, from The Examination, who exposed how old car batteries exported by the US automotive industry for recycling in Africa are contributing to exposure to lead in nearby communities. Another panel features Munir Al Khatib of ARIJ, whose team examined how organized criminal gangs abuse vulnerable migrants along the Sudan-Egypt border. Inna Gadzynska, head of investigations atTexty, will also discuss using AI, among other techniques, to trace how Ukrainian children in Russia’s voluntary relocation were forced into adoption.
Tech Track
Investigating Tech
All Protocol Observed’s Athandiwe Saba, Agência Pública’s Natalia Viana, and Gabriel Geiger of Lighthouse Reports join Francisca Skoknic to explore how journalists can explore and expose the corporate behavior of the world’s largest tech companies. Join this discussion into what is the human and environmental cost of tech and how can we increase cross-border collaborations to continue holding tech companies accountable.
Human Rights Track
Investigating Migration and People on the Move
Massive movements of people and restrictive immigration policies create urgent stories requiring specialized reporting approaches. Session attendees will learn techniques for investigating migrant trafficking, border enforcement, detention facilities, and immigration policy. This panel features speakers from Egypt, India, Costa Rica, and Bolivia, giving participants a chane to learn from reporters across three continents how to safely and ethically work with migrants as sources, establish secure communication protocols, and maintain appropriate journalist-source boundaries when covering displacement, asylum processes, and human trafficking networks.
Hear from Egyptian journalist Sameh Ellaboody, who has won multiple awards for his reporting on migration, corruption, and organ trafficking. Ronny Rojas, currently working with Noticias Telemundo, is another panelist and has led complex cross-border collaborative projects with newsrooms in the US and Latin America. Pari Saikia a freelance journalist from India has been reporting on human trafficking, forced migration, refugees, slavery, labor rights, and more from India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, Italy, Germany, and Portugal.
Nonprofit & New Models
Funding Investigative Journalism: What’s Working Now
The funding landscape for media has changed drastically in the last few years. Amid this radical change, journalists continue to learn what works and what doesn’t when it comes to fundraising and generating revenue from and for investigative journalism. This session of expert speakers will be moderated by Mila Milosevic of Global Forum from Media Development (GFMD). She will lead a discussion with Bridget Gallagher, who has more than 20 years of fundraising experience. Gina Chua, executive director of the Tow-Knight Center where she focuses on the intersection of journalism and AI, and Sue Valentine, an independent media consultant with extensive experience in international philanthropy, media development, and press freedom.
General Track
In Conversation with Garance Burke
Few reporters have done more to define what accountability journalism looks like in the age of artificial intelligence than Garance Burke. A global investigative reporter with the Associated Press based in San Francisco, Burke has spent her career pushing at the intersection of technology and power, work recognized with the 2026 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting and a documentary Emmy Award for her AP/FRONTLINE and PBS collaboration. This discussion with Burke will explore how to investigate opaque, fast-moving technologies and what it takes to hold both governments and tech companies accountable.
Environment Track
Investigating Extreme Heat
Close to half a million people die worldwide each year as a result of extreme heat — and that number is expected to soar as climate change brings stronger and longer heatwaves. In this panel, journalists will discover key areas to investigate heat, including medical consequences, the impact on vulnerable populations, economic and agricultural effects, impacts on sports and culture, infrastructure challenges with increasing demand for power and water, and gender differences in heat vulnerability.
The panel’s speakers include Aishwarya Mohanty, an award-winning journalist from India who has spent her career reporting on the impact climate change has had on people’s lives in the country’s heartland; Maximilliano Manzoni, editor of the weekly newsletter Consenso, whose work focuses on climate justice and misinformation; and Chemtai Kirui, head of the environment desk at Kenya’s Kass Media Group. The session will be moderated by Laurie Goering, extreme heat editor for the nonprofit organization HERA.
Regional Panels (held across different time zones)
- Tools and Techniques to Conduct Environmental Investigations, Lessons Learned from Latin America
- Investigating War Crimes (experiences from different regions)
- From Africa to the World: Investigating Africa’s Critical Mineral Exploitation and Export
- Regional Look: Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Kyrgyzstan – Challenges and Journalistic Investigations
- Investigating Human Trafficking – Asia and its Global Links
IJ WEEK will also include dozens of other hands-on, practical sessions on key data and reporting topics.
- The Coding Mindset: How to Reorient your Thinking for Success
- Introduction to AI for Data-Driven Investigations
- Conducting Investigations as a Freelancer
- Don’t Outsource Your Instincts: Traditional Research Skills Essential in the AI Era
- Listening to the Evidence: How Sound Is Reshaping Investigative Journalism
- Mapping Analysis Using QGIS
- Open Source Research: Tools and Methods for Investigative Journalists
Facts Only
* The program is scheduled with less than seven weeks remaining until IJ WEEK begins.
* More than 130 speakers from 65 countries will lead sessions.
* The event will feature over 50 panels, workshops, and networking sessions across 13 thematic areas.
* Editor’s Clinics are included for one-on-one sessions with editors for pitching or career advice.
* Confirmed editors include Daniel Howden, Wahyu Dhyatmika, Rana Sabbagh, Ides Debruyne, Débora Votquenne, Emmanuel Dogbevi, Paul Radu, and Martha Mendoza.
* The Data Track features sessions on using AI for investigations, human rights abuses, and satellite/trade data.
* The Tech Track includes a session on exploring the corporate behavior of tech companies.
* The Human Rights Track covers investigating migrant trafficking, border enforcement, detention facilities, and immigration policy.
* A panel addresses techniques for working with migrants as sources across Egypt, India, Costa Rica, and Bolivia.
* A session discusses funding investigative journalism and fundraising methods.
* A panel focuses on investigating extreme heat and its consequences, including medical, economic, and infrastructure impacts.
* Regional panels cover topics such as environmental investigations in Latin America and investigating war crimes across different regions.
Executive Summary
Full Take
The structure of the event reveals a deliberate scaffolding designed to connect specialized technical skills (Data, AI) with high-stakes investigative fields (Human Rights, Environment). The cross-continental nature of the speakers and topics—spanning migration, resource extraction, climate, and technology—suggests an underlying recognition that modern accountability journalism requires interdisciplinary expertise that transcends traditional reporting silos. The inclusion of Editor's Clinics alongside broad networking suggests a mechanism for transferring not just knowledge, but also institutional navigation and career capital, positioning the event as a nexus for both technical skill-building and professional advancement.
The focus on methodologies such as using AI for tracing historical events (like forced relocations) and analyzing environmental degradation through data sources indicates a shift in the infrastructure of investigative work from purely document-based research to sophisticated computational analysis. The regional panels, particularly those concerning critical mineral exploitation in Africa and trafficking links across Asia, map specific geopolitical vulnerabilities onto reporting frameworks. This structure implies that the real challenge is not just finding information, but developing the specialized, ethically grounded tools necessary to verify claims in complex, rapidly evolving global systems where power dynamics are heavily vested in data and geography.
The implication for human agency lies in democratizing access to these complex analytical methods. By bringing together experts from diverse geographies and disciplinary backgrounds—from climate science to border enforcement—the event attempts to create a shared language for accountability. The tension resides in whether this high-level synthesis of powerful tools will translate into sustained, ethical practice on the ground, or if it risks becoming another layer of academic abstraction removed from immediate material realities. What mechanisms are established to ensure that these cutting-edge techniques serve those most vulnerable populations, rather than simply optimizing data extraction for existing power structures?
Sentinel — Human
The text reads like a detailed promotional overview for a multi-faceted journalism conference, exhibiting human editorial structuring and specific, complex thematic content.