This week six college students who exemplify “the new journalist in the digital media age” became the first winners of a new Associated Press-Google scholarship program. Each will receive $20,000 in the coming academic year to fund their work on projects “at the intersection of journalism, computer science and new media.”

Some of the winners are…

• Emily Eggleston, graduate student, journalism and geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison. She founded the school’s data-driven journalism group and writes for the school’s hyperlocal site Madison Commons. Project: Producing data-driven stories about Madison.
• Reginald James, undergraduate student, University of California-Berkeley. This Bay Area multimedia journalist produces the internet radio show The Black Hour and is a contributing editor for the independent news/community site Oakland Local. Project: Launch a mobile-friendly, hyperlocal version of UC Berkeley’s Onyx Express magazine serving the school’s black community.
• Katie Zhu, undergraduate student, Northwestern University. She develop the mobile site for GOOD, a progressive news site and magazine. Project: to build LedeHub, a tool to apply the software development technique of distributed version control to the processes of journalism.

Read more about all the winners.

Applications for the next round of AP-Google scholarships opens April 30. This program is administered by the Online News Association.

The News for Digital Journalists blog is made possible by a grant to USC Annenberg from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.