The MediaFutures support programme offered:
- a number of free resources for data-savvy entrepreneurs, creatives and artists and anyone else interested in using data responsibly in the media sector. CLICK HERE AND FIND WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR.
- a 6-month Accelerator (startups & SMEs)/ Residency (artists) programme including funding, mentoring and training for projects selected through one of the three Open Calls.
Throughout the project MediaFutures supported 51 startups or SMEs and 43 artists through a total of three Open Calls, distributing a total amount of €2.5M.
We selected startups and creatives to join MediaFutures, either as standalone entities or in partnerships, through an Open Call application process. Depending on the track the winners received a grant up to €40,000 for artists and up to €80,000 for startups, alongside expert consultancy and support to reshape the media value chain through responsible, innovative uses of data through the Residency programme, the Accelerator or the Startup meets Artist mixed Residency and Accelerator programme.
The aims of the programmes:
Accelerate innovation
Support emerging media initiatives driven by companies and individuals
Increase citizen and community awareness and engagement
Develop new transdisciplinary approaches between startups, artists and datasets
Question and challenge the role of media and use of data in our society
Create a network for startups and artists in the media sphere
tracks
Startups for Citizens track
Accelerator for Startups
Startup meets Artist
Startup meeting Artists support programme
Artists for Media track
Residency programme for Artists
stages
The support programme followed a 3-stage-approach:
1° stage
start
For Startup meets Artist and Startups for Citizens tracks only. During one month the artists and startups could refine their project, define the use of technology and clarify the goals of their participation in the MediaFutures support programme. At the end of the month, a pitch event has been organised. Artists and startups presented their business model, and collaboration project in front of a jury. This jury selected half of the teams to continue the support programme and take part in the BUILD phase.
1° stage
Start
For Startup meets Artist and Startups for Citizens tracks only. During one month the artists and startups could refine their project, define the use of technology and clarify the goals of their participation in the MediaFutures support programme. At the end of the month, a pitch event has been organised. Artists and startups presented their business model, and collaboration project in front of a jury. This jury selected half of the teams to continue the support programme and take part in the BUILD phase.
2° stage
BUILD
The artists selected for the Artists for Media track directly started the residency programme at this phase. This phase lasting approximately 6 months was the core part of the programme. During this period, the teams focused on achieving the goals of their support projects.
2° stage
build
The artists selected for the Artists for Media track directly started the residency programme at this phase. This phase lasting approximately 6 months was the core part of the programme. During this period, the teams focused on achieving the goals of their support projects.
3° stage
EXHIBIT
The teams reaching the required percentage of their Key Performance Indicators accessed this final stage. A Demo Days event has been organised to showcase the work carried out during the programme. A prize of €5,000 for artists and €10,000 for startups has been awarded for the most successful contestants, following the decision of a jury.
3° stage
exhibit
The teams reaching the required percentage of their Key Performance Indicators accessed this final stage. A Demo Days event has been organised to showcase the work carried out during the programme. A prize of €5,000 for artists and €10,000 for startups has been awarded for the most successful contestants, following the decision of a jury.
Each laureate has been accompanied by a member of the MediaFutures team all along the process. This allowed a personalised follow up and increase the success of the projects.
training
We offered selected projects a training programme covering a comprehensive range of topics aimed at moving the startups and artists towards success. These cover pitching, social innovation, data viz & analytics, public funding, legal and ethical guidance, data privacy and GDPR. The topics were defined by experts and fine-tuned through participant feedback. Some training sessions are run during the START phase, others during the BUILD phase.
Acceleration and promotion
Business Planning (START): A framework for building your product or service. In this session the selected projects of the Startup meets Citizens and Startup meets Artist tracks prepare a short description of their business model and business proposition to the MediaFutures programme, and receive first-hand feedback from the speaker.
Pitching Skills (START): Learn to prepare a pitch, in particular the spoken presentation. This session includes insights on body language and speaking tonality, as well as helping founders refine the way they tell the story.
Art-Tech Collaborations – Best Practices (BUILD): Understand how to run a co-creation process between startups and artists, identifying the success factors for art-tech collaborations and giving leads to efficiently start a co-creation process involving artists and startups. Collaboration rules, co-creation environment, common language, available resources, expectations – these are some things that need to be defined at the beginning of the collaboration and that will be addressed during this session.
Category Design (BUILD): Learn how to best market your product and pursue the correct strategy to find your niche market.
Marketing and Communication Strategies (BUILD): Learn how to develop a communication strategy and get press coverage, how to run a social media campaign and which tools to use.
Sales and Go-To Market Strategies (BUILD): Learn about defining a strategy for sales, understanding how to best communicate the product and its value, and become familiar with existing tools and examples that can be used to guide a sales strategy.
Media literacy
Application of Artificial Intelligence to Journalism (BUILD): Exploring global citizens’ scientific and data literacy, horizontal data access and source transparency and reliability, methodologies, best-practices and support. Presentation of digital tools co-designed with citizens to access trustworthy news and facilitate and strengthen media and political vertical accountability.
Media Literacy – Data and Narration (BUILD): International journalists speak about their personal experience as war correspondents, media, public policy, cyber security and policies, misinformation and disinformation, in different contexts.
Practical Misinformation – Numbers, models, algorithms and us (BUILD): Learn about how data is used and presented (in the media), lifting the lid on some of the illusions and showing how there is a much simpler logical truth behind the illusion.
Social innovation
Social Innovation and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (BUILD): Learn how to align your business model to social innovation and the Sustainable Development Goals. This session explains methodologies and tools to align business models/initiatives with these international standards, and identifies the main social risks that may arise from business activity in order to avoid and minimise negative impacts, as well as highlight and strengthen positive societal impacts.
Legal and ethical guidance on data privacy and GDPR
Anonymisation is for Everyone (START): Learn how to bring a structured approach to anonymisation in your projects, introducing the latest thinking on anonymisation, and explore how to develop and maintain trusted data infrastructure.
Basics of Personal Data and GDPR (START): Strengthen the understanding of personal data protection, including the EU framework for personal data protection and breaking down the key concepts of the GDPR.
Introduction to Data Ethics (START): Learn about the concept of data ethics, how ethics is addressed in other domains, and how data ethics can be applied to help organisations avoid harmful impacts and increase trust in new products and services.
AI Media Applications – A Legal and Ethical Perspective (BUILD): Learn about the topic considering ethics, intellectual property, liability and the specific risks and opportunities created by the use of AI systems in media.
Freedom of Expression and Right to Information Explained (BUILD): Guidance on how you can enhance or safeguard the protection of freedom of expression in your projects.
Introduction to Intellectual Property Rights (BUILD): An overview of the different intellectual property rights, their rationale, their scope, and terms of protection with a specific focus on copyright, trademark and patent.
Public funding
Public Funding (BUILD): An overview of the different Funding Opportunities in Europe to help the SMEs elaborating a public funding roadmap to support the next steps to be carried out by the organization to reach the market.
Experiments
Design experiments with a small selection of projects in order to perform research on the fields of computational social science, human-computer interaction or artificial intelligence covering topics such as citizen engagement, misinformation, or controversy analysis thus adding value to the projects and generating scientific knowledge.
We also collected some self-training resources for you.
For more information, GO HERE.
