Karel De Bondt on Intrapreneurship

In this interview we talk to Karel De Bondt, an expert on intrapreneurship at VRT Sandbox. 

Hi Karel, you are an expert on intrapreneurship at VRT Sandbox. When and how did you take on that role?

I’ve been working at VRT Sandbox pretty much since the beginning. I started with running the startup cases themselves. Afterwards, I began working on an intrapreneurshiptrack, and a track on innovative video workflows.

What does intrapreneurship mean exactly?

At VRT Sandbox, we offer the same support to startups as to internal inventors. These intrapreneursare people with creative ideas, that program software, but also hardware. We want to offer them the same platform as the external companies. This means we will set up a collaboration with production teams and help them grow. We will offer training for pitching, sales and business analysis, as well as business development and so much more

Continue reading

0

Media Innovation: its future in the next European Research Agenda

European policy makers are now discussing the future of the European Research Agenda beyond 2020 in the framework of the upcoming proposal on the post-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) and its R&D scheme, the Framework Programme 9 (FP9) running from 2021 to 2027. Amid these discussions, the European Commission has launched a Public Consultation on “EU funds in the area of investment, research & innovation, SMEs and single market“: an occasion to feed into its proposal for the next generation of funding programmes that the MediaRoad consortium did not miss!

Indeed, the European media sector has a vast creative potential for innovative services and it has a strong tradition in investing in R&D. However, this capacity is increasingly dwarfed by powerful global players and the sector is lacking an adequate support scheme that is able to fully capitalize on its strength. While separate programmes exist to support and strengthen technological innovation and creative content production, there is no programme combining these two

Continue reading

0

Gregg Young on VR and AR

In this interview we talk to Gregg Young, VR and AR expert at VRT Sandbox. Gregg explains the difference between AR and VR, and reflects on the trends and achievements in both fields.

 

Introduction to AR and VR

Hello, Gregg! You are a VR/AR expert at VRT Sandbox. Since when and how did you get that role in VRT Sandbox?

I started working at VRT in the Immersia TV project, this is a European project under the Horizon 2020 fund. This 2-year project is all about 360-video, multicam 360-video and sending the 360 footage to different devices. Together with other colleagues at VRT we are representing this technology on the news floor and with other VRT brands. This is how I slowly became member of VRT Sandbox. Since then we started to do a lot of VR and AR projects at VRT Sandbox as well.

Continue reading

0

Research and Innovation in Animation

Animation is a dynamic sector which is flourishing and rapidly changing in terms of technology and audiences. It is a concrete example of collaboration, innovation and creativity. It is an industry which opens up great opportunities to the animators but at the same time financial limitations often lead to technological weaknesses and consequently, less competitiveness in the market. These aspects are presented below in an interview by our colleague from the European Coordination of Independent Producers (CEPI) with Philippe Alessandri; Philippe is Chairman of Animation Europe, the pan European Association which includes animation producer association within the EU, also active member in CEPI.

Liana Digka: How has digital innovation improved the quality of animated series and permitted to relocate production in Europe by increasing the productivity of the animation studios?

Philippe Alessandri: In the 90s, when I had my first contact with Animation, Asia was the place where the animation work was sub-contracted because of the low-cost services. The production was based on traditional means such as hand drawing and camera shooting. At that time, two French companies invented a digital system in order to produce animation electronically. It took 10 years for this technique to be completely accurate and to get enough well-trained artists to use it. With this technique the productivity increased and European production companies became more competitive vis-à-vis the Asian ones. This production optimisation combined with the tax incentives adopted by some European governments made it affordable to relocate production in Europe.

Continue reading

0

From the ORF to Radiodays Europe: innovation in Vienna

Blogpost by Sarah Geeroms

I leave well in time to make it to Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF) at 9:00AM. The Austrian public broadcaster is located outside the city center, but luckily, public transport in Vienna is well-organized. My contact person Karl, who is a member of the Technical Direction department, welcomes me upon my arrival. We meet at the online & TV center, that has about 1900 employees (out of almost 4000 in total). The radio station, where Karl was working for 20 years, is located in the city center. Just like VRT, ORF is going through an architectural transformation. Within a few years, all of ORF services will be grouped on the same location. TV and Radio will then be subdivided per program.

ORF has two large TV channels and two interest channels (culture and sports). They do not have a children’s channel, as they find almost all of their content in Germany.

Within their own country, there’s almost no competition: ORF has a turnover of 1 billion €, that’s huge!

Continue reading

0