FactFinder Online OSINT Summit
You are already good at OSINT. Spend four days on war & conflict and bring back work that's strong enough to move policy.
July 13 to July 16
12:00p.m. - 1:30p.m. (NYC Time)
Can't make it live? You've got six months of recording access
Enroll Now
Meet the Instructors
Gisela Perez de Acha
A lawyer and open-source investigative reporter who built the first Open Source Investigative Reporting course at UC Berkeley, training 150+ journalists, lawyers, and investigators in digital fact-finding. Her reporting for Frontline, ProPublica, and The New York Times has been recognized with a Polk Award and an Emmy. She specializes in extremism, cartels and disinformation in Latin America. Gisela is also the founder and CEO of FactFinder.
Haley Willis
A former Visual Investigations reporter at The New York Times, where she combined traditional reporting with open-source digital methods to investigate conflict, corruption, and human rights. Her work has been recognized with multiple Pulitzer Prizes, George Polk Awards, and a News Emmy. She has covered Russian atrocities in Ukraine, civilian casualties from the U.S. air war in the Middle East, and police killings across the United States.
Cover War & Conflict Remotely
The best conflict reporting right now isn't coming from the ground. It's coming from someone who can geolocate a shaky video, read satellite image, treat video like a forensic report, and connect the evidence. Don't risk yourself or your team. Do it from your desk.
Better OSINT Means More Work Coming Your Way
The investigators who get hired are the ones who can leverage the best skills for the digital age. Very few people do this well. And the market is really hot for it. Sharper OSINT means better bylines, better clients, better pay. The work will start finding you.
Solve the Stories and Cases That Everyone Else Has to Pass On
Most investigations die at the same wall: when all the leads have been exhausted. OSINT gives you the possibility to find hundreds of additional leads. You'll have the moves. The case everyone else dropped becomes the one you crack.
Day 1
Investigating Drug Cartels
Cartels run on social media now: recruitment, threats and bragging. It's all out in the open. In this session, Gisela walks through a real investigation, tracing one post to the network behind it.
Day 2
Establishing Chain of Command
in Ukraine
When a strike kills civilians, accountability starts with the paper trail. Haley Willis walks you through building a chain of command for war crimes in Ukraine: matching units to locations, cross-referencing military records and satellite imagery, to build a case that holds.
Day 3
OSINT in Iran
A bombing hits Telegram before it hits the news, real footage tangled up with AI fakes. For this session, Gisela walks through real examples from Iran, verifying strikes and catching disinfo as it happens.
Day 4
Evidence in Gaza
Gaza is one of the most documented conflicts in the world. When ground access is blocked, survivor and victim footage becomes the primary record. How do you find these videos in the first place? And how do you verify that they are real in the era of AI? Haley will walk us through practical examples of some of her biggest investigations at the NYT.
What people have said about past courses
"These skills have outlasted many tools that come and go with an ever changing tech landscape."
- Sasha Schell. Journalist.
"It was fascinating to me to understand a bit more "how we know what we know" with regard to war crimes and other investigations."
Dallin Johnson. Lawyer.
Four Days:
July 13-July 16.
Mark it. And OSINT like never before.
$99
USD
- Four 90 minute hands-on trainings
- All the class resources
- Class recordings for six months in case you miss a session
If you are only starting your OSINT Journey, you are welcome to join us for the Summit. But you might want to review the basic geolocation, chronolocation and search practices.