Digital Media Days 2020: Online Edition

Sarah studied journalism at ZHAW and has worked for joiz tv and 20 Minutes, and now at SRF since autumn of 2017. As a Producer, she is mostly in charge for videoseries for SRF Virus such as Unzipped, True Talk or Inked. Currently she is also building a new editorial Instagram-Channel for a young target group of women, with the editorial staff consisting solely of young woman as well.

Bethan Jinkinson is Executive Editor at BBC Ideas, a short-form video website aimed at 18-45s. BBC Ideas features digital videos from a range of genres, including psychology, philosophy, anthropology, science and history, and she and her team work hard to ensure that each film is engaging, shareable and genuinely informative. Earlier this year, BBC Ideas won Best Science and Education video channel at the Webby Awards.

Hanan Challouki (28) is a strategic consultant and Inclusive Communication expert. After graduating in 2015 with a Master’s degree in Strategic Communication, she realized there was not much diversity in the creative industry she wanted to enter. Driven by a mission to create a more inclusive world, she became an entrepreneur and created her own vision on marketing and communication in a super diverse society. She has worked with clients such as Brussels Airport, Telenet, KRO-NCRV and BNP Paribas and got listed by Forbes’ 30under30 for her innovative strategies.

Andrea oversees Strategic Partnerships across the EMEA region for Instagram, in both established and emerging markets, working with partners in News, Entertainment and Sports. Before joining Instagram, Andrea worked in digital publishing for 14 years in London, Sydney and New York.

Dmitry Shishkin is an award-winning and experienced leader in digital transformation, content strategy, organisation and culture change in a global setting. He spent 20+ years at BBC World Service helping it to grow its digital audiences to record levels before joining a travel startup Culture Trip where he worked as Chief content officer leading a decentralised network of content creators, finding scalable ways to commission and produce content including automation and machine learning.

​​​Sarah is the Head of Future Media Hubs. She has built up a very broad experience in the last 15 years. Firstly, she worked more than 10 years in the private sector with a focus on business development, negotiation and networking. Secondly, she coordinated major events and projects, set up partnerships, and recruited and coached volunteers at an NGO. Sarah has been working at VRT innovation since May 2017. Since then, she has established the Sandbox Hub as part of the European Commission supported project MediaRoad. In the meantime, the Sandbox Hub has been extended to different international hubs of media companies where technology strategies and innovation mechanisms are exchanged, international collaborations are being set up, and local start-ups and SMEs are enabled to scale faster internationally. In addition, Sarah works on strategic partnerships for VRT’s technology department and is closely involved in other projects of VRT Innovation, which means that she constantly collaborates with European and Flemish partners, including media companies, technology providers, start-ups and academia.

Jaanus Lillenberg has been working for the electronic media since 1994. He calls the Estonian Public Broadcasting (ERR) his second home. Throughout his career he has worked tirelessly for media innovation and digitization. Currently, his team is engaged in renewing technology and services. This year's project list includes the basic network for ERR and the new FVOD platform jupiter.err.ee, as well as a new local cloud-based TV studio sound solution.

Rui Barros studied Television Production and Postproduction at ETIC, the school for creative industry in Lisbon, before moving to New York to continue his studies in storytelling and editing. He was certified in New York as a Pro User and Trainer, by Apple and Future Media Concepts. Working since 2004 at RTP, the Portuguese public broadcaster, with roles in various and important projects such as fictional series, documentaries, concerts, news, etc. Furthermore, Rui is keen to develop technical solutions in the field of design thinking, post-production, video and data networks for the NOS ALIVE music festival on television. Currently he is a member of the Technology Committee of RTP.

Annelies Termeer is creative director of VPRO Medialab - a lab researching the storytelling potential of new technology for Dutch broadcaster VPRO. VPRO Medialab tries to tell exciting and original stories using technology like smart speakers, bots, AR, AI or messaging platforms, while simultaneously reflecting on the technology itself. In previous positions, Termeer developed online projects at film museum EYE and created digital strategies for Filmhuis Den Haag, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. She holds an MA in Film Studies from the University of Amsterdam.

Michael Bhaskar is a writer, digital publisher, researcher and entrepreneur. He is Co-Founder of Canelo, a new kind of publishing company based in London and Europe's fastest growing independent publisher, and was Writer in Residence at DeepMind, the world's leading AI research lab, between 2017 and 2019. He has written and talked extensively about publishing, the future of media, the creative industries and the economics of technology around the world . He has been featured in and written for The Guardian, The FT, and Wired and on BBC 2, the BBC World Service, BBC Radio 4 and NPR amongst others. Michael has been a British Council Young Creative Entrepreneur and a Frankfurt Book Fair Fellow.

I have been working in the digital media business for more than 20 years, first in a commercial broadcaster as head of digital and since 2016 in RAI within the RaiPlay division. I was involved in the project for the OTT platform since the launch, managing the product and editorial offer development for the first 3 years and moving to marketing and scheduling curation since last autumn

Moeed Ahmad heads the AJ+ English Channel (ajplus.net/english) which he helped launch under his previous role as the Head of Innovation for the Al Jazeera Media Network. AJ+ is one of the preeminent millennial focused digital news brands in the world having won some of the most prestigious industry accolades since its launch in 2014 including multiple Emmy, Webby and Shorty awards.

The teams he’s managed over the years have also launched Al Jazeera’s podcast network Jetty (jetty.fm), the immersive studio Contrast VR (contrastvr.com) and has contributed to the concepts leading to the launch of A Jazeera’s innovative digital talent competition Sadeem (sadeem.com).

Moeed joined Al Jazeera in 2005; and soon formed the network’s New Media group which was responsible for utilizing new technologies and innovation in media to broaden Al Jazeera’s audience base, distribution and engagement.

Majority of his career in Al Jazeera has been shaping and executing digital strategy through experimentation around research projects and incubating new ideas. He has been a proponent of open source and Creative Commons, empowering communities through collaboration and sharing. His background is in Computer Science which he studied in the University of Toronto, and is currently doing graduate studies in International Relations at the University of Cambridge.

Riyaad Minty is the Director of Digital for TRT, the public broadcaster of Turkey. Previously with Al Jazeera, Riyaad was a founder of AJ+, one of the world’s largest news outlets for the digital generation and contributed towards the network’s global strategy as Head of Social Media. He is recognised as a leader in the space of digital media and regularly speaks at conferences and universities around the world. He joined TRT in Istanbul in 2016 to help build the digital arm of the network.

Jennifer Brandel is SVP of Global Partnerships and Co-founder of Hearken, a company that helps organizations around the world develop and operationalize participatory processes. Hearken took home the prize for "Best Bootstrap Company" at SXSW and won the News Media Alliance Accelerator. Brandel received the Media Changemaker Prize by the Center for Collaborative Journalism, was named one of 30 World-Changing Women in Conscious Business, is a Columbia Sulzberger Fellow, an RSA Fellow, a member of the Guild of Future Architects and the National Civic Collaboratory. Brandel is co-founder of Zebra’s Unite, a global movement and network of entrepreneurs, funders, investors and allies creating a more ethical, inclusive and collaborative ecosystem for mission-based startups. She also co-founded Civic Exchange Chicago which brings together civic startups in a collaborative learning community.