Cluster Project 1 - A Sustainable Democracy
In 2021, the Norwegian Innovation Council (Innovasjon Norway) founded our Cluster Project 1 – A Sustainable democracy. Together with our members and partners over the next three, we will develop new solutions and increase the industry’s knowledge at the intersection of journalism and technology. The aim: To ensure that news media will continue to play an essential role in telling meaningful stories about what is happening in our society and the world. Today, it’s harder to distinguish between signal and noise in the media landscape. We have divided this project into three areas contributing to the primary goal.
Area A: Verification
Misinformation and "fake news" are growing global problems. The media cluster will facilitate new solutions that ensure an enlightened population for the future.
Area B: Investigative AI
The growing amount of information in society makes it challenging for journalists to find the needle in the haystack. The media cluster will facilitate new technology-supported techniques and methods for excavation journalism.
Area C: Storytelling 3.0
How can we better reach the younger generations with editorial content? In this project, we will work with new ways of telling stories differently to different target groups in varied contexts.
Contact: Helge Svela
STADIEM
STADIEM (Startup Driven Innovation in European Media) is a piloting and acceleration programme that brings together start-ups, scale-ups, investors, and media organizations to foster the development of Next Generation Media solutions. The start-ups selected to join the program are to design, develop, and pilot an innovative solution together with a corporate partner in the European media industry. The STADIEM project is an EU-funded project funded by the EU's Horizon 2020 programme under Grant Agreement number 957321. Media City Bergen runs the project together with our consortium partners VRT, NMA, Storytek, EBU, F6S, Martel Innovate, and VIS.
Contact: Marianne Fjellhaug
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MME
Through MediaMotorEurope (MME), Media City Bergen is part of a large ecosystem, powered by the Norwegian Media Cluster together with strong media and innovation hubs, as well as key players in the tech and investment scene. MME was a mentoring programme that aimed to nurture high-potential European deeptech media innovators solving today’s most prominent media industry challenges and support them in building scalable media solutions. After 3 open calls, 3 support cycles, and 61 selected and supported startups, MME ended in April 2022. The MediaMotorEurope project was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 871552. Media City Bergen ran the project together with our consortium partners VRT, Thermi S.A., Cluster Sofia Knowledge City, Athens Technology Center, Fasstrack Ventures, F6S, and VIS.
Contact: Marianne Fjellhaug
Norwegian Cognitive Center
The Norwegian Cognitive Center – www.norwegiancognitivecenter.com – is a hub for applied Artificial intelligence (AI). The Center assist to build increased competence and use of AI across costal and ocean industries and the public sector. The center provides infrastructure in terms of personnel, know-how, and AI platforms to assist with the conversion of data to enhance faster development of products and services, increased productivity and empowering organizations to explore and use AI to gain a competitive advantage and as tool to scale up the company.
Behind the initiative are leading industry clusters that represent thousands SMEs and midcaps, many of them global leaders in their fields. The center has collaboration with AI competent academic partners, access to data processing and has IBM, the global leader in AI, as technology partner. The Center is focusing sustainability and innovation and offers a shared competence across sectors, industries and public sector unique in a European Context.
Contact: Odd Gurvin
Nordic 5G Consortium
Nordic 5G Consortium consists of broadcasters and content creators in the Nordics, all with a common goal to build the best possible innovations and conditions for the next generation media services using 5G. The consortium’s main focus is technologies for both audio and video content production. The consortium's advisory board members comes from NRK, TV 2 Norway, SVT and SR, and is coordinated by Media City Bergen.
Contact: Kristian Bruarøy
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Media Lab Sandbox
The Media Lab holds technical platforms and resources available to members; A wide range of different tech for all kind of purposes, as well as open data and APIs from cluster companies and international tech partners that students, startups, researchers, teams and project developers can use as their sandbox.
Contact: Ketil Moland Olsen
Sandbox Hub
The Future Media Hubs is an international network of media organisations that focuses on innovation through collaboration and knowledge sharing. Their main goal is to accelerate the development of the media industry and its local ecosystems by facilitating partnerships between public as well as commercial media organisations. Media City Bergen is part of both the sandbox hub and the open labs hub of Future Media Hubs. The sandbox hub is designed to inspire and support international media organisations to collaborate with start-ups, while the open labs hub seeks to share knowledge and means of reaching young audiences.
Contact: Kristoffer Hammer
European Digital Innovation Hub - Oceanopolis
EDIH Oceanopolis is part of the newly established network of EDIHs that are instrumental in driving digitalisation across SMEs and public organisations, with a particular focus on Artificial Intelligence, Cyber security and Hyper Performance Computing. Media City Bergen´s Norwegian Cognitive Center will play a key role in delivering the AI aspects of the project.
Contact: Kristoffer Hammer
Reg4Future
A consortium universities in Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have jointly mapped the opportunities, obstacles and state of the art for the adoption of 5G and AI in the Baltics, with the contribution from Media City Bergen which mapped current strategies and state of affairs in Norway.
Contact: Kristoffer Hammer
Journalism AI Collab Challenges
In 2021, Media City Bergen and four member organisations – Dagens Næringsliv, Fædrelandsvennen, Stavanger Aftenblad, and Factiverse – collaborated with newsrooms worldwide to discover how AI can power storytelling. The challenge was this: How can we structure our journalism in smaller pieces that can be stitched together in different ways at individual lengths to serve several target audiences in ways that better resonate with them than current journalism does? The team’s answer to this question was the Micro Fact Box project. Here, journalistic texts are annotated with facts injected from reliable sources, such as national encyclopedias. The project report goes in-depth both on the problem and the suggested solution.
Contact: Ketil Moland Olsen
Sports Journalism
Content, innovation, and technology are three keywords when Media City Bergen and TV 2 Sporten, collaborate on the sports journalism conference. The goal is to gather different skills and interests into a common arena for professional and social events. The sports journalism conference will be held annually, gathering sports journalists from national and nordic publishers, broadcasters, as well as students and tech companies.
Contact: Charlotte Vindenæs
Future Week
Future Week is the annual media and media tech festival at Media City Bergen, consisting of a number of research seminars, lectures, conferences, debates, and breakfast meetings - all about our shared future as it is driven and shaped by technology. We can promise you several days filled with exciting and pioneering experiences, as well as valuable insight, inspiration, and - maybe most important - the opportunity to network. We will look into the future, to discuss what lies ahead, and check out some of the great innovations from the Norwegian Media Cluster.
Contact: Charlotte Vindenæs
mcb tech
mcb tech, the future-focused conference for tomorrow's leaders.
mcb tech is a joint initiative between the Norwegian Media Cluster and the Finance Cluster in Bergen. The annual future-focused tech conference is to be held for the fifth time in June 2022.
The mcb tech conference focuses on new technology as a key driver in business, providing new opportunities and challenges. The need for new strategies and business models and adopting a digital mindset is key to future success. With world-renowned keynote speakers on innovation and technology, mcb tech will leave you with a new perspective on how to strategize and grow your future business.
Contact: Charlotte Vindenæs
Skattefunn
Media City Bergen holds an annual course on how to apply for Skattefunn. Skattefunn is a support mechanism for innovation in SMEs through tax relief for costs related to innovation projects.
Contact: Kristoffer Hammer