Lenses is an open-source tool that lets anyone build and transform interactive graphics for mobile audiences. The initial platform was developed by a News Corp  team with NYU School of Engineering Integrated Digital Media students coding components. Columbia Journalism students, in partnership with the Brown Institute for Media Innovation, are creating stories with the toolkit using civic data.  The project is managed by NYC Media Lab.

"It's meant to be extremely easy to use," said Justin Hendrix, executive director of NYC Media Lab in an interview with Catalina Albeanu of Journalism.co.uk  "Journalists won't have to learn how to code, or do design."

Speaking to Journalism.co.uk after his recent presentation at Digital Media Europe, he said Lenses is meant to "make it possible for journalists to very easily incorporate any type of data into a visual programming platform, and then drag and drop different components to instantly create mobile data visualizations."