Recap | High­lights of #mthcon2020

What a pre­mie­re! For the first time, the Media­Tech Hub Con­fe­rence 2020 took place in a hybrid for­mat – pro­du­ced live in the Babels­berg stu­di­os and acces­si­ble via an inter­ac­ti­ve online plat­form. After months of pre­pa­ra­ti­on, all the work and cou­ra­ge to rea­li­se the Media­Tech Hub Con­fe­rence in this year of cri­sis final­ly paid off. During the two con­fe­rence days more than 800 peo­p­le took part in #mthcon2020 and expe­ri­en­ced over 30 hours of pro­gram­me with more than 75 spea­k­ers on three stages via our inter­ac­ti­ve online platform.

We have lear­ned so much – about Media­Tech trends and crea­ti­ve busi­ness models, about cur­rent chal­lenges and future indus­try visions.

Here is a litt­le recap of some of our #mthcon2020 highlights

Murat Sön­mez from the World Eco­no­mic Forum and aut­hor Ken­za Ait Si Abbou as ope­ning speakers:

The two ope­ning key­notes of the MTH Con­fe­rence took a look behind the curtain of the tech indus­try: What respon­si­bi­li­ty do peo­p­le have in inter­ac­ting with tech­no­lo­gy and how can we use media tech­no­lo­gies to crea­te a fair and human socie­ty? Murat Sön­mez, Direc­tor of the Cent­re for the Fourth Indus­tri­al Revo­lu­ti­on at the World Eco­no­mic Forum, ope­ned the first day of the con­fe­rence: “To unleash the poten­ti­al of the Fourth Indus­tri­al Revo­lu­ti­on we must shape it in a trans­pa­rent and inclu­si­ve man­ner. Let’s put our coll­ec­ti­ve minds tog­e­ther and crea­te a future that we can all be proud of!”

The second con­fe­rence day star­ted with a key­note by Ken­za Ait Si Abbou, aut­hor and Seni­or Mana­ger Robo­tics and AI at Deut­sche Tele­kom, on how arti­fi­ci­al intel­li­gence repro­du­ces racism: “Every litt­le click trains machi­nes. If white peo­p­le get more likes, machi­nes learn that they are more rele­vant. We have the respon­si­bi­li­ty to fight this dis­cri­mi­na­ti­on. Empa­thy is what distin­gu­is­hes us from robots and we also need to app­ly this emo­tio­nal intel­li­gence online.”

Enter­tain­ment Stage - Tech­no­lo­gy meets creativity:

On the Enter­tain­ment Stage of the MTH Con­fe­rence ever­y­thing revol­ved around media tech­no­lo­gies for film, tele­vi­si­on and broad­cast. A key issue of the dis­cus­sions was the impact of the pan­de­mic on the film world and the incre­asing digi­ta­li­sa­ti­on of the indus­try. Accor­ding to Marc Schwel­len­bach, Head of Pro­duc­tion at UFA, the pan­de­mic is acce­le­ra­ting deve­lo­p­ments in the field of smart and vir­tu­al pro­duc­tion enorm­ously: “Covid-19 acts like a fast for­ward but­ton. New tech­no­lo­gies are adopted much fas­ter and make work flows more effi­ci­ent in many are­as”. The pan­de­mic radi­cal­ly chal­lenges the sta­tus quo in the indus­try but also enri­ches crea­ti­ve visi­ons, many spea­k­ers concluded.

A high­light of the Enter­tain­ment Stage was the key­note speech by Annie Chang, Vice Pre­si­dent Crea­ti­ve Tech­no­lo­gies at Uni­ver­sal Pic­tures. In her visi­on for the future of film­ma­king, she urged: “Let’s real­ly beco­me digi­tal nati­ve in ever­y­thing we do – from the call sheets, the film­ing of it & the visu­al effects. If it’s digi­tal, we can use tech­no­lo­gy to sol­ve actu­al pro­blems for our pro­duc­tion.” In addi­ti­on to effi­ci­en­cy, topics such as inclu­si­on and sus­taina­bi­li­ty in the film indus­try also play­ed an important role. Zena Har­ris from the sus­taina­bi­li­ty con­sul­tancy Green Spark Group poin­ted out: “It’s not only about recy­cling but about rethin­king how pro­duc­tion is mana­ged and estab­li­shing clear rules.”

Indus­try Stage - The poten­ti­al of VR and AI:

The Indus­try Stage of the Media­Tech Hub Con­fe­rence shed light on the poten­ti­al of media tech­no­lo­gies in the fields of mobi­li­ty, health, events and Indus­try 4.0, focu­sing in par­ti­cu­lar on the pos­si­bi­li­ties of vir­tu­al rea­li­ty and arti­fi­ci­al intel­li­gence. For Michel Reil­hac, VR Com­pe­ti­ti­on Cura­tor for the Venice Bien­na­le Inter­na­tio­nal Film Fes­ti­val, the future lies in “phy­gi­tal” event for­mats: “VR plat­forms offer a fasci­na­ting alter­na­ti­ve to real life, but the real impact lies in hybrid for­mats. The phy­si­cal anchors the vir­tu­al.” In the E-health track, health experts dis­cus­sed how immersi­ve tech­no­lo­gies can sup­port the tre­at­ment of pati­ents and the fight against pan­de­mics. The essence: In order to be effec­ti­ve, health tech­no­lo­gies must be desi­gned patient-centred.

In the track Mobi­li­ty, Kirs­ten Heg­ner from the Digi­tal Hub Mobi­li­ty gave insights into the latest stu­dies on micro­mo­bi­li­ty: “You don’t have to reinvent the wheel to imple­ment micro­mo­bi­li­ty. Look at the spe­ci­fic struc­tu­re and the public trans­port in your city and learn from other cities that have done it.” On the Indus­try Stage one could also expe­ri­ence live use cases: Mari­us Swo­bo­da from Rolls-Roy­ce, for exam­p­le, swit­ched live to the VR-Cave in the Ber­lin fac­to­ry and demons­tra­ted how the com­pa­ny opti­mi­ses indus­tri­al pro­ces­ses with the help of immersi­ve technologies.

Part­ner Stage - Mathi­as Döpf­ner and Sebas­ti­an Tur­ner on the future of ContentTech:

For the first time this year we also had a #mthcon2020 Part­ner Stage in coope­ra­ti­on with Tra­fo Media­Tech, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pots­dam and the Uni­ver­si­ty of the Arts Ber­lin. Here, fur­ther pro­gram­me high­lights awai­ted the par­ti­ci­pan­ts: Mathi­as Döpf­ner, CEO of Axel Sprin­ger SE, and Sebas­ti­an Tur­ner, publisher of the Ber­li­ner Tages­spie­gel, tal­ked about the latest deve­lo­p­ments of con­tent tech­no­lo­gies in the media sce­ne. Mathi­as Döpf­ner empha­sis­ed: “The com­bi­na­ti­on of tech­ni­cal crea­ti­vi­ty and jour­na­li­stic crea­ti­vi­ty are more rele­vant than ever. A jour­na­list who does not invol­ve the deve­lo­per in the idea pro­cess from the very begin­ning is no lon­ger a good jour­na­list nowadays”.

Side pro­gram­me . Work­shops, Start­up Pitch Are­na, Net­wor­king Carou­sel and a digi­tal cinema:

In addi­ti­on to the pro­gram­me on the stages, the par­ti­ci­pan­ts could expe­ri­ence a mul­ti­face­ted side pro­gram­me: Work­shops pro­vi­ded hands-on know­ledge about seri­al pro­duc­tion, meta­da­ta, micro­mo­bi­li­ty and digi­tal eco­sys­tems. In the Start­up Pitch Are­na, inno­va­ti­ve Media­Tech start­ups pre­sen­ted their busi­ness models and the Net­wor­king Carou­sel encou­ra­ged spon­ta­neous net­wor­king. In addi­ti­on, film lovers had the choice bet­ween six cura­ted films on show at the digi­tal Cine­malovers Cine­ma.

On-Demand - All con­tent available until Decem­ber 9:

Gre­at news for tho­se who missed the two con­fe­rence days: In order to give even more peo­p­le the oppor­tu­ni­ty to dive into our pro­gram­me this year, our plat­form will remain open for ano­ther four weeks. For only 9,90 Euro you can now buy your On Demand Ticket, giving you access to all #mthcon2020 ses­si­ons until Decem­ber 9! So, the Media­Tech Hub Con­fe­rence 2020 is far from being over!

Are you curious about our pro­duc­tion site in Babels­berg and how the live ses­si­ons found their way onto the online plat­form? Take a glan­ce at the #mthcon2020 pho­to gal­le­ries of Day 1 and Day 2.