Every five years since 1995, the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) publishes a report tracking the representation of women in national and world media. Although an important tool for observing world trends in gender inequality, the GMMP report is less helpful to publications looking to improve gender coverage within their organizations while tracking their progress in real time.

Olga Stern, a self-taught programmer and systems engineer from Stockholm, Sweden, has created a program specifically to fulfill this need. The program, called “Genews,” is a gender-tracking algorithm that allows media organizations to chart their gender coverage from day to day.

In this episode of Crossings Radio, Franziska Monahan speaks with Stern about her invention during the UNESCO World Press Freedom Day events in Helsinki, Finland.

Photo by Riikka Kajander. Story produced by Franziska Monahan.