Dataharvest 2026 - the European Investigative Journalism Conference

Journalists often work with sensitive information. This information should not end up in web-based tools like ChatGPT and similar services. However, there are alternatives: local LLMs that run on your own computer. This not only ensures data protection when processing large volumes of documents, but it can also save costs on expensive APIs.

This introductory workshop aims to answer the most important questions: What hardware do I need? What frameworks are available (LM Studio, Ollama, etc.)? Which models can I use for which tasks? And what does such a workflow look like (e.g., with Python)? This session is a mix of presentation and hands-on elements.

To attend this session, no prior knowledge is required. If you want to participate in the hands-on parts, make sure to download and install Ollama and/or LM Studio and download a local model like Qwen3.5-4B

After attending this session, the participants will understand the pros and cons of using local AI models and get ideas from real-life examples on how to use this knowledge.