New Bellingcat Workshops Announced for Munich, Berkeley, and Zurich

Bellingcat will hold workshops in Europe and the United States in the coming months, where participants can learn the tools and methodologies used by Bellingcat in their investigations.

• Paris, May 13-17: Full, completed
• Toronto, May 20-24: Full, completed
• Munich, July 22-26: Full, completed
• Berkeley (San Francisco), August 19-23: A few remaining spots
• Zurich, August 26-30: A few remaining spots

Each workshop is €2100 per person, and this covers the cost of the five-day workshop. It does not cover participants accommodation or travel costs. These workshop fees fund the salaries of Bellingcat’s researchers around the world and initiatives that include our newly-launched Yemen Project. Each workshop will have multiple Bellingcat trainers present, and in some cases have three or more with various investigative specialties.

Participants are required to bring their own laptops, and Google Earth Pro (free to download here) should be installed ahead of the workshop. We strongly recommend having a Facebook account during the workshop (does not need to be your personal, real account) in order to participate in a number of exercises that build Facebook research skills. WiFi will be provided at the workshop for all participants.

The workshop will be split into two main sections. The first three days will be dedicated to teaching participants a range of open source investigation skills, with case studies and practical examples focused on topics including conflict, crime, corruption, and verification. The first two days will focus on investigations of videos and photographic content, and the third day will focus on social media investigation.

The last two days allow participant to apply those skills to topics of their choice, with assistance from the workshop leaders and Bellingcat team members. On the final day, the progress of these projects will be presented to the group and future steps in the investigation will be discussed. Where possible and desirable for the participants, Bellingcat will provide additional help with those investigations after the workshop is concluded.

The intention of the workshop is to teach participants the core skills required for open source investigation, giving them sufficient time with practical examples to develop solid investigative experience, and teach a range of tools and methodologies that can be applied to their own work.

More information on our workshops can be found in this article from The New Yorker. Additional details on our workshops and training agendas can be found in a document here.

If you wish to participate, please send the following information to workshops@bellingcat.com:

• Name
• Organisation
• Billing address
• Contact email
• Contact phone number (mobile/landline)
• Food allergies/intolerance
• What three things would you like to learn on this course?
• Any special requests, information, etc.

Due to high demand workshop spaces fill up quickly. If you are able to attend workshops in any of the countries listed you may include multiple locations in the workshops you would like to attend. If you have a preferred location please mark that as preferred. We anticipate holding approximately 20 workshops throughout 2019. So far in 2019, Bellingcat has held paid five-day workshops in London (twice), Washington D.C., Amsterdam, New York, Sydney, and Melbourne. In the latter half of 2019, we expect to hold workshops in Amsterdam, London, and two workshops on the east coast of the United States (two of Washington D.C., New York, and Boston). We will likely host workshops in at least two other European cities in 2019, though we have not yet decided on these locations.

If you have any questions or queries, please send an email to workshops@bellingcat.com

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