2016 saw the second IBC Hackfest, the live competition to create new technological solutions to help speed the future of the media industry. This year's winner was Skipaclass.
Sponsored by Accedo, Avid, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure and Streamroot, and part of the global Hackathon initiative, the IBC Hackfest sets teams challenges which have to be solved with ingenuity and invention, in a short period. The starting whistle was blown at 11.00 on Saturday morning at IBC (10 September), with the final submissions due by 13.00 on Sunday. Teams could hack through the night if they wanted.
The teams were urged to think about the Future City. The Internet of things, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and more are already familiar and disruptive. How will they drive change in the near future? What will the changes look like?
Will it impact education? What effect will the growing sophistication of AR and VR have on the classroom? How can multi-platform, multi-screen, multi-faceted content boost the learning experience?
Entertainment is the traditional home of media, but what will it look like in the connected Future City? Will you have a television screen, at least as we know it today? How will you find and share the content you want? What will happen to the trusted brands in news?
Sports fans have got used to incredibly immersive experiences in the home, with multiple cameras and replays on television boosted by second screen apps giving us more data and more control than we could have imagined a few years ago. Will the Internet of things, or artificial intelligence, add to this immersive experience? Will we ever go to a live sports event again, or can we replicate the television experience in the stadium?
In the end, the three prize winners at IBC2016 Hackfest each tackled one of these areas. Third prize - which included a set of goodies and gadgets for each team member - went to a team called Sportie, whose project focused on live sports for the new generation. They felt that the broadcast model is dying, and the future platform needs to put the smartphone as the key interface.
Runners up were the Nightcrawlers, looking at event driven production, and a potential independent platform to rival Periscope. For their efforts, they took away a prize of 1,000 euros as well as the gadgets.
As their name suggests, winners Skipaclass looked at education: the tagline was skip a class and teach online instead . Everyone involved saw this as a really strong pitch and good implementation, with the potential to have a great impact on remote education. Their reward was 4,000 euros plus the gadgets and other goodies.
As this year's Hackfest challenge made clear, the old ways of broadcasting are embracing significant change and pursuing the new opportunities created by new tech and new thinking said Michael Crimp, CEO of IBC. We're in a period of incredibly fast-moving transformation, and IBC needs to be at the leading edge of change. Consumers expect different things from media today, which means the industry is changing beyond recognition. To remain the leading global forum for the media industry, IBC has to move in new directions, and the Hackfest is an important part of our transformation.
Find out more about the 2016 Hackfest at IBC.org/hackfest
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2016 saw the second IBC Hackfest, the live competition to create new technological solutions to help speed the future of the media industry. This year's winner was Skipaclass.
