With a vision to develop responsible media technology and to address profound global, industrial, and democratic challenges in the media-tech industry, MediaFutures – Research Centre for Responsible Media Technology & Innovation – is celebrating its first year of work and achievements.
Hosted by the Department of Information Science & Media Studies, at the Social Science Faculty at the University of Bergen and funded by the Research Council of Norway and industry partners, the centre collaborates with renowned research institutions and the most important media players in Norway.
Established on October 1st , 2020, the centre is located in Media City Bergen, and its research areas span over five work packages: Media Audience Understanding, Modelling and Personalisation, Media Content Production & Analysis, Media Content Interaction & Accessibility, and Norwegian Language Technology.
The Centre’s first Annual Meeting took place in Bergen on September 29-30 and brought together over 70 participants from Norway and abroad. During his opening speech, Prof. Christoph Trattner, Centre Director of MediaFutures, expressed pride over the institution and congratulated the involved parties on their respective achievements:
“I am so proud of what we have achieved in just one year. Not only have we setup a physical 500 m2 centre in Media City Bergen that is now up and running, but also have hired 22 people in the centre, have published 15 research articles in leading conferences and journals about our research, have participated in major scientific and innovation events, have obtained funding to expand the centre, and much much more more.”
The centre’s performance was also appreciated by Prof. Jannie Møller Hartley from Roskilde University, one of the Annual Meeting keynote speakers:
“I was by impressed with how far the Center has come in just one year, so it’s a really promising setup for the future contribution to making a more responsible media-future”.
The event, held as a hybrid conference, offered guests a mix of scientific talks, presentations by work package leaders, as well as workshops and research poster session presented by PhD candidates, Postdoctoral Researchers and Master’s students.
Over the span of two days, researchers and industry partners were provided with a unique opportunity to receive first-hand updates and insight into the centre’s work, as well as with the chance to network and engage in discussion on subjects such as data collection and sharing, responsible media technology and making innovation out of research.
“The Annual Meeting has been organized very well. I personally enjoyed having several informal meetings with industry partners where I shared the latest updates and plans ahead for the work package. Table discussions were also very interesting, and can certainly be beneficial in obtaining a better understanding of the important goals of the project and how these goals might be achieved”, says Assoc. Prof. Mehdi Elahi, Work-package 2 Leader, MediaFutures.
We thank everyone who participated in MediaFutures first Annual Meeting and look forward to next year‘s meeting already.
Photo credit: Anna Pacholczyk / NCE Media