How a Global Grant inspired Rti’s next chapter in multilingual journalism

When Akiko Uehara travelled to Radio Taiwan International (Rti) in April 2025 under PMA’s Global Grant scheme, the visit not only involved a professional exchange with her hosts, but inspired a new project for Rti itself – an inclusive multilingual platform to facilitate information sharing and exchanges between diverse communities in Taiwan.  

Uehara is the Head of International Languages at the Swiss international public service broadcaster, SWI swissinfo.ch. She was one of the nine successful applicants of PMA’s 2025 Global Grants.  

What are the Global Grants?

For over twenty years, PMA‘s Global Grants, with funding from the Grace Wyndham Goldie Trust (BBC) Fund, have supported exchanges that promote knowledge transfer, best practice learning, and on-hand training between international media companies. Through global visits to fellow member organisation, grantees gain practical insights on all variety of topics. The two-week exchange between Uehara and Rti was a model for how collaboration across borders can strengthen public media, promote cultural understanding, and stimulate inspiration for future innovation. 

Uehara’s visit to Taiwan

As part of the 2025 scheme, Uehara visited Rti to explore its multilingual approach to digital journalism. Both public broadcasters serve multilingual audiences – Swissinfo in 10 languages and Rti in 20 – and have aligned missions to connect global audiences across languages.  

Over two weeks, Uehara worked with editorial teams in Mandarin, English, French, Japanese, and German, as well as with Rti’s news, research, and academy departments. 

“Their commitment to creating culturally relevant and engaging content provided me with new perspectives on multilingual journalism and audience engagement,” she reflected.  

How Rti leveraged Uehara’s visit 

As a global initiative designed to foster knowledge sharing, PMA’s Global Grants create opportunities for mutual benefit for both the grantee and the host. During Uehara’s visit, the sharing of Swissinfo’s approach to multilingual reader engagement made a strong impression on those she met with at Rti, particularly their use of an AI–powered translation tool to foster inclusive public debate.  

Inspired by Swissinfo’s model, Rti were inspired to create their own multilingual platform – which they have called Rti CoSpeak: Rti Multilingual Civic Media Creation – to strengthen cross-cultural dialogue and broaden participation in Taiwan’s public media. A pivotal moment during the exchangeoccurred when Swissinfo demonstrated that multilingual dialogue supported by AI-enabled translation could foster authentic cross-cultural understanding. 

“The nDX project will help RTI evolve from a multilingual broadcaster into a dynamic, AI-enabled digital media platform that integrates multilingual journalism, enhances audience engagement, and strengthens Taiwan’s global communication capacity” – Carlson Huang, Director of Rti Academy

This was important for Rti, given their internal research into the needs of minority-language speakers in Taiwan, such as those from Indonesia and Vietnam.

“The findings revealed that while many rely on social media and community networks for information, they often lack trusted, verified sources in their native languages, especially on issues like labour rights, healthcare, and legal protections,” said Huang, Director of the Rti Academy. “This survey [served] as a foundation for Rti’s multilingual strategy, confirming that accessibility and credibility were key needs for these groups.”

This experience solidified the possibility for Rti that digital transformation can extend beyond technological advancement to encompass inclusion, active participation and the empowerment of different languages and communities.

As a result, Rti applied and were successful in receiving funding from Google’s Taiwan News Digital Co-Prosperity Fund (nDX) to develop their new technical language platform. “The Swiss Info exchange did not just inspire Rti’s nDX project, it accelerated it,” Huang explained. “By showing how multilingual, AI-powered engagement can work in practice, Swiss Info helps Rti clarify its goals, build confidence in its direction, and gather the insights needed to move from planning to implementation.”

Supported by a Global Grant from the Public Media Alliance (PMA) and the Grace Wyndham Goldie [BBC] Trust Fund.