Hack the Future of Media

IBC

http://www.ibc.org/hot-news/hack-the-future-of-media

The world’s media is in a state of rapid flux and the rules are constantly being rewritten. When internet players are coming to TV and TV is moving to the web, defending the status quo is no longer an option. While traditional broadcast and pay TV models convulse with unprecedented disruption the best tactic may be to break convention and innovate a way to prepare for the future. 

IBC meets this industry challenge head on with the return of the IBC Hackfest. Following the success of its debut last year, the event will double in size for IBC2016 with exciting new partners and prizes taking to the next level. Sponsors can set challenges for the best in international development talent at this high octane event, essentially outsourcing their R&D and encouraging outsiders to look at their brands in an un-blinkered light. 

This year, the IBC Hackfest invites 100 designers, developers and entrepreneurs to engage with the theme 'Re-imaginging the Future of Cities Through Education, Entertainment and Sports'. 

By tapping into proprietary API's and SDK's made available by technology companies uniquely for this event, as well as scores of publicly available APIs, developers will brainstorm ways in which we might live and work together in the smart urban net-connected environments of tomorrow. 

They will draw on Open Data, the idea that information should be freely available without restrictions from copyright patents or other mechanisms of control, and work with established and emerging social media networks, artificial intelligence concepts and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to unlock commercially oriented solutions that others have found hard to crack.

The IBC2016 event is augmented by AngelHack – the world's largest hackathon organiser – who will be promoting the Hackfest to their community of more than 98,000 developers worldwide. Participating sponsors will have the unrivalled opportunity to present a brief to teams of coders, user experience designers, hardware hackers and data scientists to achieve a specific software development goal. 

The inaugural IBC Hackfest in 2015 produced some incredible results including Emoment, a means of capturing moments through emotion; Old News, a second screen engagement platform for news programmes; and Tapball, a gamification for sports in which fans would play along with friends by tapping their smart screen during a live streamed match to 'bet' on goals or other events. Partners included Twitter, Amazon Web Services, Streamzilla and Monterosa. 

Held in Amsterdam over 36 hours on 10-11 September in the Diamond Lounge, the IBC Hackfest is a fun and creative space where hackers join with over 55,000 attendees at the heart of IBC2016. 

For innovators looking to win high value prizes and to showcase their ideas to a hugely influential jury of broadcast industry professionals, participation at IBC Hackfest is empowering. Use your bright ideas to inspire and build something new and sponsors could invest in you and take your IP to market. 

For industry companies trying to build a developer community and access uncharted expertise, the IBC Hackfest is a necessity. Don't get stuck in a corner. Think your way out of the problem at IBC, the nucleus for creative technology invention.