BRAVE Engagement at the Asian Media Leaders Summit 2025: Advancing Innovation and Resilience in Asian Newsrooms

In November 2025, the BRAVE programme facilitated a coordinated, high-impact peer learning engagement in Singapore, led by WAN-IFRA. This initiative brought together media professionals from across Asia, combining participation in the Asian Media Leaders Summit 2025 (5–6 November 2025) with a dedicated BRAVE workshop titled From Crisis to Innovation: Practical Tech Pathways for Asian Newsrooms (4 November 2025).

The summit, detailed here: https://wan-ifra.org/events/asian-media-leaders-summit-2025/, provided a timely platform for engaging with regional media leaders on pressing challenges related to sustainability, digital transformation, and innovation.

A total of 18 participants from BRAVE-supported countries—including Bangladesh, Myanmar, Indonesia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan—took part in this integrated learning experience. The initiative reflects BRAVE’s commitment to strengthening independent media ecosystems through cross-border collaboration, practical capacity building, and exposure to global industry trends. Participants were selected through a competitive process designed to ensure strong alignment with organisational readiness and potential for impact, with consortium partners actively contributing to the selection process.

The BRAVE workshop on 4 November focused on equipping participants with forward-looking strategies and practical tools to navigate rapidly evolving media environments. The programme combined strategic planning with hands-on innovation, structured across two core sessions. The first session explored scenario-based planning approaches, enabling participants to anticipate organisational and market shifts over the next three to five years and identify opportunities for integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into long-term business strategies. The second session provided practical exposure to AI applications tailored for resource-constrained newsrooms, including content automation, translation, transcription, and workflow optimisation. Participants engaged in collaborative exercises, tool demonstrations, and pilot design processes, leaving with concrete action plans for immediate implementation.

Importantly, the workshop emphasised responsible and context-sensitive adoption of technology. Participants examined critical considerations such as data security, verification processes, and ethical use of AI tools, ensuring that innovation pathways remain aligned with editorial integrity and audience trust. The hands-on format enabled participants to co-develop prototype workflows and identify priority use cases based on feasibility, impact, and risk.

Participation in the Asian Media Leaders Summit further complemented the workshop by providing broader strategic exposure to industry trends and facilitating networking with global media leaders, donors, and sector experts. This dual structure—combining targeted technical training with high-level regional engagement—created a comprehensive learning experience that strengthened both individual capacities and institutional linkages.

A key strength of this initiative lies in its collaborative nature across the BRAVE consortium. For example, the International Federation of Journalists supported participation by nominating practitioners from Pakistan through its local networks, demonstrating effective leveraging of consortium partnerships to maximise reach and impact. Such coordination underscores BRAVE’s integrated approach to peer learning, where partners contribute complementary strengths to deliver cohesive and scalable outcomes.

Overall, the Singapore engagement represents a strong example of BRAVE’s peer-to-peer learning model in action—bridging global expertise with local realities, and translating strategic insights into practical, newsroom-ready solutions. By connecting media leaders across diverse contexts and equipping them with actionable tools, the initiative contributes to building more resilient, innovative, and sustainable independent media ecosystems across Asia.