Grant amount: $30,000

Adriano Farano is CEO and founder of Pactio, a platform where readers can subscribe to individual journalists. At the Institute, Farano plans to design the Pactio experience and business model in a way that can help drive a renaissance of beat reporting, lower the bar for financial viability of high-quality journalism and reinforce the engagement of local communities with the news they care about. Previously, Farano founded the participatory news site CafeBabel.com, was awarded a JSK journalism fellowship at Stanford University and founded Watchup. Watchup was a streaming news service that won a Webby Award, partnered with 190 news organizations and pioneered the concept of a personalized newscast. In late 2016, Watchup was sold to the top OTT app Plex, where Farano served as their first Head of Content and remains involved as a strategic advisor.