TVBEurope hears from the co-founder, volunteers and students taking part in Rises inaugural summer school
By Jenny Priestley
Published: August 4, 2022 Updated: August 8, 2022
TVBEurope hears from the co-founder, volunteers and students taking part in Rise's inaugural summer school
target=_blank title=Share on LinkedIn class=share-linkedin>
This week, advocacy group Rise is running its inaugural Rise Up Academy Summer School, with over 500 students set to walk through the doors over four days.
TVBEurope visited Global Academy in Hayes to hear from the organisers, volunteers and students taking part.
The co-founder Rise Academy was co-founded by BT Sport's chief engineer Andy Beale and Rise managing director Carrie Wootten in 2019.
The decision to launch the event was taken following a review of Rise's work in mentoring, as well as encouraging, developing and promoting women who are already working in the media tech industry.
We saw this massive skill shortage coming, explains Beale. Broadcast engineering skills, both in vision and sound, and media engineering, like all the post production and workflowy stuff, were just disappearing. That was either because people were moving on to other careers, or they were retiring.
As well as the lack of skills, Beale and Wootten also wanted to tackle the issue of diversity. We want to attract more people who would never normally have seen this as an opportunity or career for them, particularly more females, and also socially economically challenged young people who just wouldn't ever think about this industry being for them, continues Beale. We asked, can we make this a more inclusive and diverse industry at the same time as fixing the skill shortage? And that's where the Academy was born. We ran a pilot scheme at a school in Reading where we went into Year 6, so kids who were turning 11, and we just tried it.
Following a pause brought about by the pandemic, Rise staged smaller events around the UK earlier this year but they wanted to be able to reach a much bigger audience. Carrie's idea was to have this intense period of trying to bring as many people as we could through the door, be really efficient with the volunteer time and with the equipment we've been loaned.
The team reached out to Global Academy in West London, a university technical college (UTC), which is a publicly funded secondary school sponsored by radio company Global. We've had a cohort of people coming in from all over London, as far away as Surbiton, Bromley and Finchley who want to see what it's about, adds Beale.
The scheme is welcoming two sets of students: 2nd-3rd August was exclusively for students in years 7 to 9; followed by students in years 10 to 13 on 4th-5th August.
They get to experience how to build a little studio, which is a programme we run in schools where you plug up a full camera studio and replays and graphics VT, explains Beale. There's an OB truck very kindly provided by Cloudbass. We've got a cohort of post companies from Soho here, VFX companies looking at things like metahumans and visual design, virtual production with Mo-sys, graphics with AE Live and Singular. We're doing cloud production with AWS and Grass Valley.
The students are seeing a bit of everything from the whole industry. I'm hoping they leave really excited and and we can follow up them afterwards about where to go next if they're looking for next step.
In fact, Beale and the team have had almost instant feedback from both the students and their parents. We've had some lovely emails from parents saying how much their kids enjoyed it, he says. We had an email from a parent of a young child who's autistic saying, normally, they might struggle in this environment given the complications and learning strategies, but actually, they found it really welcoming, inclusive, and they had the most amazing day. That's really, really cool.
Asked if there are already plans to repeat the success of Rise Up Academy in 2023, Beale says the team always need help and support from the media tech industry. I must thank all the sponsors and all the volunteers. Some of them have been released by their employers and some have come because they believe in Rise and it resonates. That resonance is for me is affirmation that the problem that we believe exists, does exist and that it needs fixing.
The volunteer Niki Whittle, head of broadcast at disguise, has been involved with Rise since its launch. Like Beale, she is concerned about the lack of skills impact on the industry. The talent crisis is a big problem, especially with my area, which is virtual production and Unreal graphics, she says. It's new technology that probably is better for the next generation anyway, because they're gamers. It's new skills that haven't been taught yet. We're trying to inspire the next generation into TV, because TV isn't cool anymore.
Whittle is always keen to stress to the students that they're already content creators, especially if they're posting videos on TikTok or YouTube. They're stitching together highlights, adding graphics, and sound. All of that is storytelling, the only difference to what we do is that we get paid for it, and we get to travel around the world!
She has also seen first hand how much the students have been enjoying their time at the Rise Up Academy, citing a young girl who arrived on Monday who she describes as extremely timid. By the end of the session she was skipping around the room, grabbing cables off others and putting the fronts on the equipment when we closed things down. She just had a massive smile on her face, she was absolutely loving it. I heard one girl say to her friend, oh my god, this is so much fun I'm definitely coming back tomorr
Europe Stories
09/11/2025
Dalet today announced a transformative leap forward for media operations: Agentic Artificial Intelligence (AI) that unifies the Dalet ecosystem under one natura...
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
16/09/2025
Hace una d cada, la m sica latina representaba apenas el 8% de las reproducciones globales en Spotify. Hoy, constituye m s de una cuarta parte (27%) de toda la ...
16/09/2025
A decade ago, Latin music made up just 8% of global Spotify streams. Today, it a...
16/09/2025
Spotify is expanding our video lineup with a new partnership with Zoo 55, part of ITV Studios. For the first time, acclaimed content from ITV Studios is landing...
16/09/2025
Calrec has strengthened its collaboration with audio metering expert RTW by integrating RTW's new TMxCore metering platform across its full range of Argo IP...
16/09/2025
Leading space solutions company will use optical ground stations to deliver faster, more secure data from space
Luxembourg, September 15, 2025 - SES, a leading...
16/09/2025
Comscore Unveils The Scoreboard: An Interactive Destination Surfacing Consumer B...
15/09/2025
Global K-Pop sensation aespa is redefining what it means to be rich with the r...
15/09/2025
Every day, millions of people around the world turn to Spotify to enjoy the audi...
15/09/2025
After months of intensive planning and implementation, Brembo SGL Carbon Ceramic...
15/09/2025
Unique sports content orchestration platform builds momentum among SES's cus...
15/09/2025
-- Opens door to growth in renewable energy New Delhi, India - 15th September -- Global business and industry leaders from around the world are joining technol...
13/09/2025
Harmonic's Software-Based XOS Advanced Media Processor Provides Unparalleled Efficiency and Unlocks New Business Models SAN JOSE, Calif. - Sept. 13, 2025 -...
12/09/2025
For fans, we know how important it is to stay plugged into music culture and dis...
12/09/2025
Link ping, Sweden and Shipley, United Kingdom, September 12, 2025 - Agama, the expert in video observability and analytics for service quality and customer expe...
12/09/2025
Feature-length retrospective from Studio Crook to air in 2026
Sir David Jason returns to the nation's favourite comedy channel, U&GOLD, for Open All Hours:...
12/09/2025
Friday 12 September 2025
The Boomtown Rats, Nyah Grace, Soweto Kinch, Royal Ballet and Madness also announced to perform at the ceremony on Tuesday
Sky today ...
12/09/2025
Wuppertal September 12, 2025
Riedel Unveils Ultra-Light Bolero Mini Wireless Intercom BeltpackAt IBC2025 in Amsterdam, Riedel Communications unveiled Bolero M...
12/09/2025
Wuppertal September 12, 2025
Riedel Communications Acquires hi human interfaceRiedel Communications today announced the acquisition of hi human interface fro...
12/09/2025
CORE+ virtually removes distortion, setting a new standard for church sound and giving worship teams the clarity and confidence they need.
Read the full artic...
12/09/2025
The Late Late Show is back with a bang after the summer break, and Patrick Kielt...
12/09/2025
The World Athletics Championships, Ireland v France in the Women's Rugby World Cup quarter-final, the Irish Champions Festival, and two Sports Direct Men...
12/09/2025
The Records Show starts Sunday at 6.30pm on RT One and RT Player.
Katie Hanno...
11/09/2025
RADAR, Spotify's program for emerging talent, recently hit a major milestone...
11/09/2025
Link ping, Sweden, September 11, 2025 - Agama, the expert in video observability & analytics for service quality and customer experience, announced today the la...
11/09/2025
Under the USD 89.6 Million award, SES Space & Defense will provide global commer...
11/09/2025
Leading Balkan DTH provider adds capacity to consolidate its m:Sat TV platform at 23.5 degrees East and serve more customers across the region
Luxembourg, 11 S...
11/09/2025
UKTV's free streaming service U launches on Sky Q
Free streaming service U has launched on Sky Q in the UK, UKTV and Sky confirm today, expanding the footp...
11/09/2025
From the discreet 2061 lavaliers to 4099 and 4011 mics, the setup delivered clean, natural sound in one of the most challenging broadcast environments.
Read th...
11/09/2025
From rugged build quality to natural, detailed sound, the verdict is clear: big performance can come in a very small package.
Read the full review here!...
11/09/2025
Tonight on Prime Time
RT One and RT Player at 9:35pm
Tonight RT Prime Time...
11/09/2025
RT Statement: 2026 Eurovision Song Contest
At the General Assembly of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) in July, a number of EBU members raised concerns ...
10/09/2025
Lossless on Spotify Premium is here.
Lossless audio has been one of the most a...
10/09/2025
The Television Will Be Revolutionised Sep 10, 2025
Written by Sunit Kotecha, Director of Delivery and Operations, YouView
2025 marks a century since the f...
10/09/2025
First of Spains F110 frigates get future-ready with Rohde & Schwarz communicatio...
10/09/2025
Harmonic's cOS Platform Supports DOCSIS and Fiber, Enabling Midco to Deliver Reliable Multi-Gigabit Connectivity to Subscribers SAN JOSE, Calif. - Sept. 10,...
10/09/2025
RT brings three days of live radio, live entertainment, live news, live weather, personal appearances, and more
Join RT Radio 1: Morning Ireland, The Oliver ...
09/09/2025
Since 2020, Spotify's RADAR program has been a launchpad for emerging talent...
09/09/2025
In 2020, Spotify launched RADAR with a clear mission: to identify, nurture, and ...
09/09/2025
If you're on BookTok, you know the drill. You scroll, you tap, and suddenly your To Be Read list is overflowing with trending must-reads. Not unlike Spoti...
09/09/2025
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({ content_source:......
09/09/2025
Harmonic's VOS360 Ad SaaS Enables Personalized Ad Delivery and Seamless Integration with the Ad Tech Ecosystem SAN JOSE, Calif. - Sept. 9, 2025 - Harmonic ...
09/09/2025
St. Luke's Episcopal Church in New Jersey needed audio that truly connects and they found the answer.
Read the full case study here!...
09/09/2025
From AI-driven sound design to adaptable systems and uncompromising audio quality, the discussion highlights how innovation is shaping the future of performance...
09/09/2025
The conversation covers DPA's natural, uncolored sound, how to choose the right mic for any application and the company's latest innovations including C...
09/09/2025
From the origins of CORE to the latest CORE+ upgrade, the article explores how DPA minimizes distortion, expands dynamic range and ensures clarity at every SPL ...
09/09/2025
September 9 2025, 07:22 (PDT) Dolby Revolutionizes Entertainment on Four Wheels...
09/09/2025
The Autumn Schedule has begun on RT Raidi na Gaeltachta, with a feast of music, entertainment, news and current affairs programmes as well as an interesting s...
TVBEurope hears from the co-founder, volunteers and students taking part in Rises inaugural summer school
