IABM announces winners of 2021 BaM Awards and Annual IABM Awards Outstanding innovation and achievement celebrated
IABM have announced the winners of the 2021 BaM Awards® and the Annual IABM Awards at a virtual event held today on its BaM Zone™ digital engagement platform with attendees from around the world. As with 2020, the cancellation of exhibitions again this year has meant that the usual two editions of the BaM Awards, held at NAB Show and IBC, have been rolled into a single event.
The BaM Award® winners are chosen from nine individual categories described by the BaM Content Chain®, as well as a tenth category recognizing an outstanding project or collaboration. The judging was carried out by a panel of more than 40 independent, expert judges, each with specialist expertise in one or more of the awards categories.
The Annual Award winners were chosen from entries across a total of five categories: Andrew Jones Young Person of the Year; Technology Leader of the Year; and the Broadcast/Media Company of the Year – augmented with two new awards for this year: Environmental Sustainability; and Most Inclusive Company.
The BaM Awards® winners are listed below by category, with abridged judges’ comments appended:
Create
EVS – XtraMotion
“Leveraging cloud processing and machine learning, XtraMotion is a new software application that enables the transformation of footage from any camera angle on a production into high-speed video using frame interpolation. As a result, productions can easily increase their super slow-motion coverage without any extra cost and without the need for additional hardware on-site.”
Produce
Mo-Sys – VP Pro XR
“High quality blending of real and virtual events. Great engineering solving real-world problems and helping adoption of new film-making techniques. Impressive results with this technology for future virtual productions. The future is here, now.”
Manage
Synchronized – Smart-AdBreaks
“Doing more with less – always a winner. Great to see an entry that’s linked to both revenue and a real-world customer. Great data-driven advertising solution and highlighting a collaboration with an end-user as well.”
Publish
Eluvio – Broadcast TV’s first major NFT endeavor: the Masked Singer on Fox
“This entry proves once again how Blockchain really is going to transform media and how we need to start preparing now for web 3.0.”
Monetize
EON Media – Computer vision and real-time brand ROI for live broadcast and VOD content
“Great point solution that enables media businesses to gather more data for advertising measurement. An interesting and innovative solution – leveraging image recognition technology to deliver a new use case, supported by a case study.”
Consume
Worldcast – Tagit Interactive
“A compelling solution specific to radio, which makes a clear link between interactivity and data.”
Connect
Vizrt – Connecting the world with NDI® 5
“This submission stands out not just for being so well placed when broadcasting in Covid times, but also for the enormous opportunities ahead in terms of more climate-friendly remote production, and cameras (but not necessarily OBs) everywhere. NDI 5 is bringing the benefits of IP studio to the mass market with a very wide adoption; the Bridge product enables global connectivity.”
Store
Quantiphi – AI-powered video de-duplication
“Very few media organizations get to implement new technology without having to negotiate legacy issues. Any library is built up over time, in different systems, for different purposes and managed in different ways. Utilizing AI to identify what is related and what the differences are, has untold benefits.”
Support
Telos Alliance – Telos Infinity® Virtual Intercom Platform (VIP)
“Fills an important need. An innovative product that simplifies infrastructure costs and adds flexibility. What’s cool about this system is that it’s like also bring your own device, phone, PC etc; congratulations to the Telos Alliance team!”
Project, collaboration or event
Intel, Spin Digital, Globo – Powering the Olympic Games Tokyo live streaming in 8K, 60 fps, HDR over the open Internet
“The 2020 Olympics had been ambitiously trailed as 8K over many years but to stream this over the open Internet in 60 fps, 10-bit HDR was totally surprising – a groundbreaking achievement. The figures on the data handling are incredible.”
The IABM Annual Awards winners are listed below with relevant nomination or judges’ quotes included:
Andrew Jones Young Person of the Year
This award is named in honor of IABM friend and colleague Andrew Jones who we sadly lost in 2019. Andrew was IABM’s Head of Training and played a vital part in the development of our educational initiatives and fostering the next generation of talented people for our industry. The award recognizes someone new to the industry (under 25 years old) for their hard work, diligence and potential. The 2021 winner is:
Anna Matic
Anna Matic is 23 years old and works as a Software Developer at nanocosmos. She currently works part time at nanocosmos while completing her Master of Science in IT Systems Engineering at the Hasso Plattner Institute. Anna started working at nanocosmos in 2019 on several projects that have had a huge impact for the company’s ‘nanoStream Cloud’ live streaming solution.
Anna has an exceptional ability to plan, develop and program for a project according to the latest standards yet covering the entire appearance of the user interface. She is working across departments bringing together programming /coding and design concepts. Her innovative design applies to small elements, but also to the bigger picture ensuring elements tie into corporate design and the latest technical requirements.
Technology Leader of the Year
This award recognizes a person who is at the forefront of disruption and innovation within the broadcast and media industry who, through inspired leadership, has helped to deliver ground-breaking technology and business benefits. The 2021 winner is:
Andy Beale – Head of Engineering and Innovation, BT Sport
Andy has been the Chief Engineer for BT Sport since its inception and has been pivotal in steering its rich history of innovation from industry-first launches of 4k, Dolby Atmos, AR, 360, and 8k. During the last year Andy has taken the lead in transforming how BT Sport and the industry has transitioned to live remote production. His key focus is using technology for good and his priorities have been driven by staff welfare and safety, well-being, accessibility, sustainability and enhancing creative options.
His focus on adaptability has been key in ensuring technology is the enabler and not the driver. He has led on BT Sport completely transitioning its operating model to hybrid home, studio site working and he never stands still, as demonstrated with the new cloud production workflows being implemented for BT Sport’s Ashes programming. Andy engages enthusiastically with the wider industry in developing processes and sharing learnings for the better of people who work in the industry and his particular leadership on sustainability and accessibility has been incredible.
Andy’s passion for the industry and ensuring it is sustainable long term by becoming more inclusive and diverse is equally impressive as demonstrated by the leadership role he has taken on in establishing and implementing the industry-wide Rise Up initiative and also the award-winning BT Sport United portfolio. Technically Andy is a very creative thinker but one who always works to a core principle making him a fantastic role model, who has really shone over the last 12 months.
Broadcast/Media Company of the Year
This award recognizes and rewards broadcasters or media companies that have demonstrated throughout the year that they are at the forefront of creating and distributing ground-breaking content through innovation across the content chain. The 2021 winner is:
beIN Media Group
beIN Media produced outstanding coverage of Euro 2020 – the first major live sporting event since the March 2020 worldwide lockdown. It did this despite ongoing Covid restrictions and achieved almost 1 billion views across the MENA region, combining 15 hours of live daily studio coverage with expert analysis from local and international talent and 18 on-the-ground reporters in 11 European countries. All of this while continuing to broadcast the rest of beIN’s substantial summer of sports coverage – a fantastic achievement, especially considering the enormous difficulties caused by the pandemic.
Environmental Sustainability
Like very industry, broadcast and media is accountable for its effects on our beautiful but fragile planet. But as companies increasingly label themselves “eco-friendly,” it can be tricky to identify the companies that are truly eco-friendly and those that are merely jumping on the environmental bandwagon for “green marketing.” This award recognizes companies that have made real strides in reducing their carbon footprint. The 2021 winner is:
Blackbird
Blackbird is spearheading the critical issue of sustainability within the broadcast media and video industry. Blackbird’s cloud native production technology has been independently found to generate up to 91% less CO2 at source than on-prem and cloud-based workflows because it requires no special hardware or virtual machine, runs on any laptop, uses only 2Mbps bandwidth and, of course, eliminates travel to venues. Blackbird is delivering real, tangible environmental benefits to both its customers and the wider world.
Most Inclusive Company
In today’s volatile business reality, diversity and inclusion are more important than ever. Yet measurable progress in increasing workplace diversity and inclusion is often slow to non-existent. This precisely why IABM created this award to honor the companies that are keeping this front and centre within their organizations. The 2021 winner is:
BT Sport
BT Sport has taken real action right across its operation to promote Diversity and Inclusion.
Well over 100 of its staff have taken part in a dedicated D&I programme, and it has produced a premier league football match with all-female on-screen talent and production.
BT Sport is also a founder member of Rise Up, inspiring girls into the industry, has done takeover days with a college to enable students to create a BT Sport show, and its School 21 programme engages students from many backgrounds.
It also got right behind International Women’s Day in March this year, including again all-female crew and talent for its football coverage. BT Sport also celebrated Black History month 2021 with all-new educational, entertaining and inspiring content. And earlier this year, formed Hope United, a diverse team of footballers who came together to educate the country on the digital skills needed to tackle online hate.
For all these reasons, BT Sport is a shining example of front-foot Inclusivity, and a worthy winner of this award.
“Chairing the judging for these awards is always a pleasure – it’s fantastic to see such a huge amount of brilliant innovation; once again this year we have seen that innovation is not just alive and well but positively thriving in Broadcast, Media and Entertainment,” said Stan Moote, CTO at IABM and chair of the awards judging panel. “And as well as innovating to keep ahead of the rapidly transforming technology landscape, it’s also great to see that our industry is fully on board for addressing wider subjects, including leadership, sustainability and diversity & inclusion.”
IABM (www.theiabm.org) is the international trade association for broadcast and media technology. IABM facilitates the important networking and interaction between suppliers that shape and define the unique ecosystem of the broadcast and media technology industry.
IABM supports member companies with a comprehensive range of services across market intelligence, training, technology, exhibitions and best practices – all designed to help them do better business. We hold the interests of member companies as paramount, and strive to provide strong guidance and support at every level in all geographies.
