Tag: listening event

NextGen Partners With Howard University Professor Nikole Hannah-Jones on Student Podcasting Course

April 17, 2024

At Spotify, we want to equip student creators with the tools and resources needed to harness their creativity and shape the future of audio. Our NextGen program, which is sponsored by the Creator Equity Fund (CEF), is designed to infuse, activate, and grow podcast culture on college campuses across the country. 

Spotify NextGen recently partnered with Howard University and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Nikole Hannah-Jones, Knight Chair in Race and Journalism, to create a special podcasting course. The result is 1619: The College Edition, a dynamic, three-episode series produced entirely by the class. In the podcast, the students apply their unique lens to what they learned from studying Professor Hannah-Jones’ book, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story, and make compelling connections to the ways that slavery still impacts lives today.

Kristin Jarrett, Lead, Equity Diversity & Impact at Spotify, said, “The NextGen program brings podcast culture directly to college campuses and encourages educators to take an audio-first approach to their curriculum. In partnering with HBCUs around the country, Spotify is addressing the access gap to the audio industry by providing the next generation of audio storytellers with resources and skills needed to kickstart a career in audio. We’re proud of the partnership with Howard University, and of the student-produced podcast that was made during the semester—it exemplifies the power of podcasts as a meaningful way to share stories and experiences that may otherwise go unheard.”

To celebrate the launch of the podcast, Spotify NextGen held a listening party on April 16 on Howard University’s campus. Howard’s 2024 NextGen Scholar, Karys Hylton—a sophomore journalism major—was also notified of her $10,000 Spotify NextGen scholarship live at the event.

Fans of Spotify True-Crime Podcast ‘Olöst’ Enjoy Special Invitation to Season Finale Live Listening Event

December 18, 2019

A series of peculiar knife murders shook Stockholm in 1989—and the killer was never found. In true-crime podcast Olöst (Swedish for “Unsolved”), journalist Arvid Hallberg and researcher Evalisa Wallin dive deep into the cold case, hunting for clues that could shed new light on the crime. This past Thursday, 160 fans of the show were invited to a special live listening event at Bio Rio theater in Stockholm to hear the podcast’s shocking conclusion before it was released on Spotify.

Not only were guests the first to hear the season finale, but they were also treated to a panel discussion held by podcaster and true-crime devotee Karin Londré, along with crime expert and author Christoffer Carlsson. Audience members were intrigued by the fact that a cold case could still be solved with the help of a podcast investigation.

In each season of the podcast, which is produced by Spotify and Banda—a new production company with award-winning journalists working on high-quality documentary storytelling—investigators use long-forgotten documents and modern technology to expose the truth of a different cold case. This season, Hallberg and Wallin searched for clues through new interviewees in hopes of uncovering previously undiscovered evidence.

“It’s been 30 years without the victims’ relatives finding out why the murders happened,” says  Hallberg. “We hope that our digging into these cases can provide some answers with the new pieces of information we were able to find.”

Check out moments from the event below.