STADIEM: Let us introduce you to the most promising next generation media startups

STADIEM is led by VRT and further includes media innovation hubs Media City Bergen, StoryTek and NMA, and the community organisations European Broadcasting Union, Martel Innovate and F6S. The Sandbox Hub is involved in the project’s matchmaking activities by making their network and sandboxing expertise available to the participating start-ups and scale-ups. Within this international network, members can partner with start-ups and scale-ups, support their growth, and help tailor their innovations to sector needs. This partnership introduces new technologies, ideas and insights to the media organisation itself. Thanks to STADIEM, start-ups and scale-ups get the chance to co-create solutions together with international media organisations, based on their needs and challenges, with the ambition to accelerate both parties.

What’s in it for you? 

The products the start-ups and scale-ups want to co-create, are solutions to in-house corporate problems. The  exchange between start-up/scale-up and corporate allows the media sector to work in an agile way, and secures sustainable growth for all parties involved.

How does it work?

From 15 December 2021 until 28 February 2022, applications can be submitted during the second open call. For reference: during the first open call STADIEM received more than 400 applications and eventually, 40 projects were selected to join the Match phase. 

The Match phase, in which the start-up/scale-up is required to find media organisations interested in the solution it provides, includes pitching sessions, networking events and one-on-one meetings. This is where it will be possible for corporations to identify start-ups/scale-ups that are an interesting addition to their trajectory and ambitions. 

After the Match phase, at least 16 start-ups/scale-ups are invited to develop their solution tailored to the needs of their corporate lead. During phase 3, at least 12 start-ups/scale-ups begin the (technical) integration of their solution and the testing for public pilots. During the final phase, at least 4 start-ups/scale-ups execute public pilots with the corporate partners in real-life environments. The pilots are evaluated for generating business value and gathering feedback from customers and other involved parties.

The open call focuses on 7 areas: Content Creation & Distribution, Archiving, Journalism 4.0, Content Verification and the Fight Against Disinformation, Data/AI/ML/Synthetic Media, Monetization and Moonshots (a whole other vision or idea).

These are some of the projects STADIEM supported: 

Ceretai offers a Diversity Dashboard, which is an AI-based software-as-a-service tool to analyse audiovisual content with a focus on diversity and equality. 

Corporate partner: VRT

For more information, you can always take a look here  or on their website: www.ceretai.com

FanSifter is a customer data platform specifically built for fan-based industries and in compliance with GDPR and other privacy laws. 

Corporate partner: Marathon Music Group / Marathon Artists

For more information, you can always take a look here or on their website: www.fansifter.com

Aiconix provides AI solutions for content processing. It makes audiovisual content detectable, searchable and usable by offering an automated transcription service.

Corporate partners: The Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, the Austrian Press Agency, the Austrian Parliamentary Administration, and Russmedia

For more information, you can always take a look here or on their website: www.aiconix.ai

FilmChain replaces the manual processes by introducing a unified enterprise platform for royalties management.

Corporate partners: Alamode Film distribution and Lumière Publishing

For more information, you can always take a look here or on their website: www.filmchain.co

Trensition’s Trendtacker is an AI-driven strategic intelligence platform that supports an automated, cost effective and continuous way to monitor trends.

Corporate partners: Roularta Media Group and SWR

For more information, you can always take a look here or on their website: www.trensition.eu

Datavillage values personal data and does so by giving people back the control over their data. It provides a privacy-preserving personal data platform that enables a personalised content discovery experience across any media service. This is possible by implementing the users’ behavioural data from different digital media channels.

Corporate partners: RTBF and VRT

For more information, you can always take a look here or on their website: www.datavillage.me

Visualyst’s tool crawls video files or live video feeds and automatically detects editorial elements that are configured as problematic, such as violence, nudity, and hate speech.

Corporate partners: Telia Norway and PBS America

For more information, you can always take a look here or on their website: www.visualyst.co

Zazu’s software enables publishers to recreate the ‘Story experience’ on their own websites and apps. This way, they can integrate stories-carousels and run ads in it. The workflow is automated by converting articles to stories in a single click. 

Corporate partner: Roularta Media Group

For more information, you can always take a look here or on their website: www.zazuapp.co

The Chainless’s AI services allow thorough metadata generation and high-quality labelling of visual media assets to structure and improve media archives. More importantly, the models can be adjusted and customised to solve company-specific requests.  

Corporate partner: ProSiebenSat.1

For more information, you can always take a look here or on their website: www.deepva.ai

Tinkerlist is developing a One-Man-Band solution using the combination of the rundown and elaborate automation module for breaking and online news studios. The journalist/writer/… writes a script / rundown on our platform. In the recording or broadcasting studio, the presenter is completely on his/her own and triggers the prompter, complex graphical templates, on-premise or remote interviews and playouts using nothing more than the space bar.

Corporate partner: VRT and DPG Media

For more information, you can always take a look on their website: www.tinkerlist.tv

Utelly’s cloud-based and multitenant software provides universal search and recommendations that can be embedded into consumer-facing products. Here, cross-media aggregation can be a successful growth path for TV and OTT media businesses who still rely heavily on linear broadcasting. 

Corporate partner: Roularta Media Group

For more information, you can always take a look here or on their website: www.utelly.com

Nowtilus allows streaming providers to smoothly deliver content and advertising which leads to a personalized ad experience for their users. It transforms monetizing with traceable measurement in real time and advertisement creation including services like dynamic creative optimization (DCO) and text-to-speech. The technology can also be used for SMEs and local businesses. 

Corporate partners: Bugovics Industries, Teutocast

For more information, you can always take a look here or on their website: www.nowtilus.tv

On-Hertz offers software-centric content production solutions that empower broadcast and media professionals to create content from anywhere at any time. They are scalable, cost-efficient and offer intuitive user interfaces for technical and operational profiles. That way, On-Hertz delivers broadcast quality in any circumstance.

Corporate partner: RTBF

For more information, you can always take a look here or on their website:          www.on-hertz.com

Smartocto’s Smartify supports the newsroom, editors and storytellers. It lets data talk to you with real-time notifications and a clear user experience. At a glance, you see which social posts score best on engagement or which A/B test of a headline is most suitable. 

Corporate partner: VRT

For more information, you can always take a look here or on their website: www.smartocto.com

Frameright offers a tool that supports their visual storytelling by displaying images correctly on all channels, platforms and devices. Frameright uses special embedded metadata, a unique AI model and a simple user interface that integrates with any system, creating a seamless human-computer hybrid approach.  

Corporate partner: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

For more information, you can always take a look here or on their website: www.frameright.io

Web64’s real-time dataset provides newsmakers with valuable insights that allow them to better understand changes in the media landscape. It provides unique understandings into what content is consumed, who is publishing it and where it is being shared.   

Corporate partner: VRT

For more information, you can always take a look here or on their website: www.web64.com

Do you want more info? Go to https://www.stadiem.eu/ or contact the team at opencalls@stadiem.eu 

The STADIEM project is funded by the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme under Grant Agreement number 957321.

Article written by Anne Vanoppen