Lena automatically produces thousands of result notifications on a local level during Swiss federal popular votes, which customers can use as raw material for their own purposes or for research. The multimedia news agency used the text robot for the first time during the popular vote on 29 November 2018.

Lena has since produced over 9,000 texts in German and French. Stefan Trachsel led the small team that programmed and operated Lena. The Keystone-SDA journalist Yoan Veya was in charge of the French version of Lena.

The prize is awarded to projects that solve a relevant problem in an innovative way, can be adapted for other news agencies, take cost-benefit considerations into account and expand coverage, said Peter Kropsch, EANA President and CEO of Deutsche Presse-Agentur DPA, when the prize was announced.

“We are delighted that the prize went to Stefan Trachsel. The Lena project demonstrates the potential for innovation of our news agencies and how we are tapping into this with our customers in mind,” says Markus Schwab, CEO of Keystone-SDA. 

Keystone-SDA will use Lena again for the federal elections in autumn 2019. Texts will again be produced that describe the election results of every single commune and present and categorise interesting details.

For inquiries: 
Stefan Trachsel, Keystone-SDA Head of Content Development, stefan.trachsel@keystone-sda.ch, 
+41 79 730 86 63