Held on November 15th and 16th in Media City Bergen, MediaFutures’ 2nd Annual Meeting came out to be a great success. With over 130 registered guests, the annual conference provided a great opportunity for researchers and industry practitioners to come together, and to discuss the centre’s latest achievements, and reflect on challenges.
In a span of two days, the Annual Meeting served as a forum for the exchange of scientific results and industry insights within the field of responsible media technology. Gathered researchers, students and industry partners were provided with an opportunity to receive first-hand updates and insight into the centre’s work, and the chance to network and engage in discussion on subjects related to MediaFutures’ research areas.
“I was thrilled to see such a great attendance at our second Annual Meeting. The past year has resulted in many achievements on the centre’s side. The researchers published many scientific papers in leading conferences and journals, and participated in major events around the world. They have also created demos showcasing their research conducted at the centre, which I am very proud of. The Annual Meeting offered our team and associates yet another great opportunity to present, discuss and obtain feedback on their scientific and innovation results”, says the centre’s director Prof. Christoph Trattner.
From trustworthy AI in media tools and responsible recommendation technology to fake news detection and changing news use, there were presentations to engage everyone. The keynotes this year were delivered by Birgit Gray, an Innovation Manager at Deutsche Welle, Christian Sandor, Professor at the University of Paris-Saclay, and Siv Juvik Tveitnes, the EVP at the Schibsted News Media. See the conference program and abstracts for more details.
On taking part in the yearly conference, Birgit Gray says: “Participating in the MediaFutures’ Annual Meeting helped me to get a better understanding of how our work in AI4Media on Trustworthy AI in Media Tools relates to MediaFutures objectives in the field of responsible media technology. Several of the topics covered are also relevant in research projects from DW Innovation and the AI4Media project.”
Prof. Christian Sandor adds: “It was very interesting for me to attend the MediaFutures AnnualMeeting. I saw lots of inspiring works! The most interesting for me was the keynote by Siv Juvik Tveitnes. She mentioned that a huge challenge for her is to attract young people back to reading news and away from social networks. This point was tying in nicely with the conclusion of my keynote: in the AR field, Europe will not be able to compete on the technology level; Europe’s great opportunity is related to content production”.
Additionally, the Annual Meeting included a poster and demo session which constituted an exciting and highly interactive way of presenting scientific results and their applicability.
Of great interest were also two workshops held on the final day of the conference. The workshops “Synthetic Media in the Newsroom” with Prof. Nicholas Diakopolous and “Thinking beyond media use. How can we make sense of future media experiences?” with Prof. Irene Costera Meijer, and Postdoctoral Fellow John Magnus R. Dahl, inspired many conversations and the exchanging of ideas.
We thank everyone who participated in the Annual Meeting and made the event such a great success. All presenters’ PowerPoint presentations will be available soon.