In June 2022, members of the Clwstwr team and a delegation of Clwstwr projects travelled to Bergen in Norway to engage in the annual media festival, Future Week.
Future Week is delivered by Media City Bergen who are world leaders in augmented reality, graphics, AI, virtual studios, broadcast and IP based video, robotics and tools for workflow and visual storytelling.
Clwstwr and Media City Bergen formed a strategic partnership in 2021 to connect the two vibrant media clusters and their businesses with an aim of fostering collaborations.
Following joint online events during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as Innovation in News and Democracy in Media Clusters, the next step was to take Cardiff-based innovators to Bergen.
Azize Naji (Goggleminds), Lewis Vaughan-Jones (Lewnah), Lucy Young (AMPLYFI) and Richard King successfully applied to attend and arrived in an unseasonably warm (and dry!) Bergen for a week of future-looking with Robin Moore of the Clwstwr Management Team and Professor Justin Lewis, Professor Sara Pepper and Kayleigh Mcleod of the Clwstwr team. Clwstwr cohort member, Shirish Kulkarni, was also in town - hosting the inaugural, full-day MCB Fact conference aimed at fighting disinformation - after being a keynote speaker at Future Week in 2021 with Journalism is for citizens, not for journalists.
Across the week, delegates attended workshops, talks and seminars looking at the future of media and mediatech. In the middle of the week and in the middle of Media City Bergen’s large and futuristic Atrium, delegates and members of the Clwstwr team presented on Accelerating media Innovation in Cardiff.
Azize Naji, Co-founder and CEO of Goggleminds, reflected on the presentation.
He said:
“It was an honour for us to have a platform on a global stage to talk about the research and development we undertook through our Clwstwr projects.
“Our trip to Bergen gave us insights into how global organisations leverage technology to bring better services and products to people. Perhaps more interesting was how some of these organisations use emerging technology like Artificial Intelligence to foster social good. Making a positive impact on the world is something we hold close to us at Goggleminds and the way we develop our technology is shaped by our desire to make things better. It was, therefore, exciting for us to take away new ideas, perspectives and business connections.
“We plan to revisit sometime in 2023 to develop new partnerships with healthcare providers in Norway, something only made possible by our newly formed connections. The trip far exceeded our expectations and what made it extra special was the delegation we went with.”
Read more about Gogglemind’s Clwstwr project, Exploring the utility of immersive technology to deliver training to the healthcare sector:
Lucy Young, Head of SaaS Delivery, at AMPLYFI is confident that the trip will also lead to new collaborations for the AI company.
She said:
“It was a delight to join the Clwstwr delegation to Media City Bergen's Future Week. The conference itself was jam-packed with interesting talks. As AMPLYFI is a company that analyses and visualises a lot of data, I was particularly interested to hear about how data journalism is currently being used and how it is evolving. It reinforced for me the importance of making data accessible and understandable within the media and, from an innovation perspective, provided plenty of ideas for future opportunities within this space.
“The connections that I made during the conference will be vital to pursuing those future opportunities. As a company that has built cutting-edge technology, it is very important to be able to collaborate with people within industry to explore and test new ideas. The trip was also a great opportunity to get to know some of my fellow Clwstwr alumni. Combined with the innovative atmosphere of the conference, many a creative conversation was had - some of which have strong potential for collaborations in the near future (watch this space!).”
Read about AMPLYFI’s Clwstwr journey here:
https://clwstwr.org.uk/amplyfi-using-ai-fast-track-investigative-journalism
Clwstwr looks forward to welcoming Kristoffer Hammer of Media City Bergen and Leif Ove Larsen, Head of Information Science and Media Studies at the University of Bergen to Cardiff in September to continue conversations about work in the area of media and young people, which began in Bergen.
If you would like to make connections with the Norwegian media cluster which you think would be beneficial to your business, please do email: clwstwrcreadigol@cardiff.ac.uk with a brief overview f why you want to collaborate in Norway and, where possible, names of organisations and businesses that you would like to be put in touch with.