Digital teams from BBC, Financial Times, Reuters, McClatchy and Deseret Media are among those currently taking part in a two-day hack event in New York.

Global Editors Network (GEN), Reuters and Cxense  have brought the digital news pioneers together for the Editors Lab Reuters Hackdays Friday and Saturdat at the Reuters headquarters in Times Square.

Seven news organisations have entered teams consisting of a journalist, a developer and a designer, with the BBC, Financial Times, Reuters, McClatchy, Florida Times Union, Deseret Media and Montclair among those competing.

The brief is to innovate around the theme of ‘Improving Loyalty’ – creating tools that boost website 'stickiness', build a community of frequent users and encourage them to stay longer on the site, and optimise loyalty

Cxense has given contestants access to their analytics and content tools, which are part of their Extraordinary Insight Engine, and is conducting a master class to get them started.

The competition will be judged by Viacom senior director for data strategy Jeremy Horn, Circa editor-in-chief Anthony De Rosa , GEN programme manager Evangeline de Bourgoing and Rob Wescott, who is Cxense’s North America senior vice president for business development.

The winning team will compete in the international Editors Lab Hackdays final hackathon, during the GEN Summit in Barcelona, Spain, June 11-13.

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