On the 17th and 18th of June, VRT hosted a hackathon for the EBU VOX group, a member-led expert group from the Digital, Radio and Technology & Innovation departments of the European Broadcasting Union. The group includes representatives from member broadcasters who have strategic interests in the future of audio and video, with the arrival of voice-controlled digital assistants.

At the end of March, VRT Innovation and VRT NWS experimented for four weeks with VRT MyNWS, a web application that aims to bring readers news articles based on their interests. The experiment was led by VRT as part of the European CPN project. In this project, VRT Innovation helps with building software that allows media organisations to personalise their news content

France TV, the Dutch NPO, the Finnish public broadcaster, the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Rádio e Televisão de Portugal. Those are only 5 of the 15 media organisations that joined the Sandbox Hub the past year. The Sandbox Hub initiative was launched early 2018 to support collaboration and knowledge-sharing among European broadcasters and startups.

For a European project, VRT is looking for 50 startups and SMEs to solve a big data challenge. Those interested could receive up to €100K. The project, called EDI, has a €5 million fund to foster the data economy in Europe.

Starting April 8, “Breaking Europe” begins, an online programme in which journalists Rudi Vranckx and Yassine Atari visit different European cities and ask Europeans their opinion on topics like migration, the climate and youth unemployment. To allow as many young Europeans to share their opinions and at the same time support the editorial team with the processing of the material, the team of VRT Innovation built a “talking box”, a mobile booth with an innovative video captioning system.

A new project led by VRT, named NewsTAPAS, has been approved for funding by Google DNI. The project aims to address the growing need for an automated and personalised presentation of news articles. The project team exists of a unique collaboration of VRT with a multimedia publisher (Roularta), an AI start-up (ML2Grow) and imec research groups (SMIT and IDLab). The project will start on May 1st and will last one and a half year.

In order to better inform its readers, VRT NWS is experimenting with a new web application, based on artificial intelligence, that allows readers to receive a personalised news offer. The experiment is part of the European research project CPN, led by VRT Innovation, that aims to build a software platform that allows European media organizations to personalise their news content.

Since 2006, Studio Brussels organises the yearly charity event Music for Life, an initiative to raise money during the “Warmest Week”. Studio Brussel calls on their listeners to set up a campaign for a cause that lies close to their hearts. Since 2017, these campaigners are able to share their stories with the Warmest Week app, record videos with the radio presenters and call in live during a broadcast. These are the innovations and projects behind Music for Life.

From the 4th of December till the 6th of December, ICT 2018 is taking place in Vienna, a research and innovation event that focuses on the European Union’s priorities in the digital transformation of society and industry. VRT Innovation will be present with various projects in the large exhibition hall. ICT 2018 will have four main components converging around the theme Imagine Digital – Connect Europe: Conference, Exhibition, Networking opportunities and Innovation and Startups forum.

To listen to a VRT radio station, or relisten to the latest VRT news, you no longer need to use your hands. The arrival of smart speakers allows you to access media content simply by using your voice. Communication with such smart speakers is currently mainly still in English, but the VRT already explores the possibilities, focussing so far on voice-controlled radio and news. In this way, the VRT intends to be immediately ‘up and running’ when Dutch-language smart speakers become available.