The call for projects to tackle real-life challenges faced by the world of M&E has begun as the IBC Accelerators 2024 officially opens for submissions and celebrates its fifth birthday.
The aim is to find business and technology innovations that set out to solve industry challenges. These will be considered for project development by a team of broadcasting experts, and ultimately showcased in front of an international audience at IBC2024.
From the initial submissions, twelve stand out projects will be selected to go forward for pitching at the Accelerator Kickstart day, to be held in early 2024.
Innovation Lead Muki Kulhan said: “The IBC Accelerators bring together an eclectic mix of Champions and Participants who form bespoke R&D teams with complementary skillsets and who really embrace the fast-track R&D sprint towards showcasing at IBC2024 in September.
“The themes of these projects, traditionally pitched by Champions, are relevant within our various industry verticals, and since the quality level is so high, narrowing down our applications to present at IBC Kickstart Day is no easy task!”
Read more Book now for IBC2024
The programme has been widely applauded by the 2023 Participants, with more than half wishing to take part this coming year. Innovation Leads have described it as ‘an incubator for collaborative innovation,’ a space where businesses can showcase ‘a framework for the industry, by the industry,’ and to come together and solve common problems.
Last year’s projects focussed on complex and ongoing developments such as Gallery Agnostics, 5G Motion Capture and Synthetic Humans. Submissions for 2024 can be from any M&E segment, and should be focused on critical areas of digital transformation, such as AI, Connectivity, Cloud, IP, Virtualisation, Sustainability, Immersive and Experiential technologies.
Innovation Lead Mark Smith commented: “The Accelerator programme encompasses a unique spirit of collaboration, with common industry challenges - and the need to find common solutions to them - at its heart. No one organisation can typically solve some of these challenges alone, even the biggest of organisations, so it’s critical to join with a mindset of an open approach to innovation and this programme offers a trusted environment where that happens.”
He continued: “These among many, many other reasons are why our Champions and Participants value taking part in this industry leading programme.”
Kulhan revealed that the key criteria that judges look for are challenges that show “a real hunger for pushing innovation that is both bold and exciting, and sometimes, undiscovered, with room to grow after IBC.” She added that the proposals need to “show how the in-team collaboration could work towards exploring some of these common pain points, focussing on a multi-vendor approach from both well-established brands, as well as up-and-coming SMEs, so the full breadth of our M&E ecosystem is represented.”
Kulhan also referenced the exciting potential in the industry today, and the growing anticipation within the Accelerator team to see what comes next. She explained that the team will be paying extra attention to applications that “include and demonstrate how and where inclusion, sustainability and diversity can be applied, or even become a lead workstream within the theme or Challenge too.”
At IBC2023, Smith noted that: “innovation is life blood of the industry,” and Kulhan described the programme as being about “getting your hands dirty,” to produce tangible results and showcase in front of a highly influential audience.
The deadline for submissions is Friday 15 December 2023. To submit your innovative project proposal click here.
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