Biography

Kuek Ser Kuang Keng is an award-winning digital journalist based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He is the founder of Data-N, a training program that lowers the barrier for newsrooms and journalists with limited resources to integrate data journalism into daily reporting. Data-N has helped publications like Foreign Policy, BBC World Service, Mediacorp, Malaysiakini and Sin Chew Daily to strengthen their storytelling with data, visual and interactive components.

Keng is also the competition officer of Data Journalism Awards, the first international awards recognising outstanding work in the field of data journalism worldwide. Started in 2012, the competition is organised by the Global Editors Network, with support from the Google News Lab, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and in partnership with Chartbeat and Microsoft.

Besides conducting workshops and bootcamp for journalists, Keng also consults and produces data and interactive stories for media organizations including Minneapolis-based Public Radio International (PRI.org) and Kuala-Lumpur based Malaysiakini. "What if the Syrian civil war happened in your country?", a data-driven interactive news application that he created for PRI.org has won the Public Choice award in the 2016 Data Journalism Awards. The news game "Undi Power" that he co-produced with Malaysiakini was shortlisted for the News Data App of the Year award in the 2018 Data Journalism Awards.

Keng has more than 10 years of experience in digital journalism. He was a journalist with Malaysiakini for 8 years specializing in investigative and political reporting. In 2013, he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to further his study at New York University's Studio 20, a journalism M.A. program that focuses on new media and digital innovation. In 2015, Keng was selected as a Google Journalism Fellow and subsequently a Tow-Knight Fellow. He has worked in several US newsrooms including NBC, Foreign Policy, PRI.org and the International Business Times.