Introducing Sophiana! By Sophia Smith Galer

Our 2024 Georgina Henry Award winner, Sophia Smith Galer, has launched her project: Sophiana.

Sophiana is a scriptwriting and teleprompter tool that turns news articles and academic research into algorithm-ready videos.

The iOS app has been build to encourage more reporters and experts to engage audiences online.

Sophiana, available now on the Apple App Store, allows users to upload or paste in their articles or research notes to the app, which then generates hook suggestions and a script primed for engaging audiences online. Viewer retention rates punish content that fails to engage audiences within the first three seconds, challenging journalists who are shifting from written to audiovisual storytelling.

Users can then immediately film their videos with an in-app teleprompter, assisting journalists for the first time with tight script structures that have a better chance of being recommended on TikTok and Instagram algorithms.

Sophia Smith Galer, founder of digital agency Viralect and creator of app Sophiana, said: “Video drives the most engagement online, and yet individual journalists and experts say they struggle to find the time or training to get it right and amplify their work. This app has just halved their production time, and shared expertise with them that took me six years to build; this could transform journalists’ ability to platform their reporting and fight disinformation in exactly the same places it’s going viral.”

The app was developed by Leo J Barnett and James Yorke, who have vast experience in direct-to-consumer apps with mobile video and AI experience. This version of the app uses ChatGPT-4o along with Sophia Smith Galer’s knowledge base.

User tested at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, journalists said “the teleprompter is genius”, that it “is really filling a need” for journalists trying to repackage their content and that “it did a slightly terrifyingly good job” with scripting.

In 2022 Sophia Smith Galer was named by British Vogue as one of the 25 most influential women in the UK for her pioneering journalism, and won the British Journalism Award for Innovation of the Year in 2021 following her TikTok videos at VICE News and the BBC. Her content has been viewed more than 180 million times and she was nominated for Education Creator of the Year this year by TikTok, the app where she has more than half a million followers.

In late 2024 she won the Georgina Henry Award for Digital Innovation from Women in Journalism, where judges said Sophina was “an exciting innovation in an important new journalistic field. Not only does itexplore the commercial benefits of AI - this eponymous innovation is also dedicated to combating disinformation.”

Sophiana won an additional award this year from the International Center for Journalists, where the app was amongst the prizewinners of their Disarming Disinformation Solutions Challenge.

Smith Galer added: “The next steps are to get customers, get funding, and continuously improve Sophiana. I’d love her to be multilingual, available on Android, and to work directly with institutions and newsrooms where she can be tailored to meet organisational needs.

“The more expertise we can amplify online, in a social media space governed by recommendation algorithms and vertical video, the better.”