The "Tages-Anzeiger Youth Lab" starts on Wednesday

What can we learn from young people with regard to their current and future requirements for (digital) products and services? What contribution can our media make to represent a reliable accompaniment in the digital information environment of young people? These and other questions are the focus of the "Tages-Anzeiger Youth Lab", in which 30 young people from all over Switzerland between the ages of 16 and 19 participate.

After the start had to be postponed due to the Corona pandemic, the time has come on Wednesday. Weekly sessions will take place until December. Editors, product managers and marketing experts from all over Tamedia will learn more about the needs of young people in a total of 13 workshops, develop new ideas for the future in dialog and create content and products together. At the same time, the young people will have the opportunity to look behind the scenes of a major media company and slip into the role of a journalist, product manager or social media manager themselves.

The "Tages-Anzeiger Youth Lab" is managed internally by Katharina Graf, Head of Blogs at the Tages-Anzeiger and Adrian Zurbriggen from the Tamedia editorial team. They are supported by the Co-Editors-in-Chief of the Tages-Anzeiger, Priska Amstutz and Mario Stäuble.

The "Tages-Anzeiger Youth Lab" was conceived by Sandra Cortesi, who is also closely involved in its implementation. The Swiss national, who grew up in Colombia, has headed the Youth & Media Project at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University for thirteen years. She has several years of experience working with young people and already accompanied 20 Minuten's Youth Lab three years ago. "A Youth Lab is a unique format for learning more from young people and their digital behaviors, attitudes and needs in a creative way," Cortesi explains. "This is exciting both in terms of retaining and growing future audiences, but also competing for future talent."

Marco Boselli, Co-Managing Director of Tamedia and co-initiator of the project, adds: "It is and remains one of our greatest challenges to better understand our future target audience and to inspire them for our products. The Youth Lab enables a creative exchange between a company's employees and young people to reduce knowledge gaps and be even better prepared for the future demands on quality journalism and products in the digitally networked environment."